The following was written by Iowa state representative Chris Hagenow and published in the Des Moines Register.
As I sit down to write this week’s article, the U.S. national debt sits at approximately $18.15 trillion. The debt per citizen is over $56,000 and debt per individual taxpayer is over $154,000.
Not only is this unsustainable, it is simply immoral. Washington, D.C., continues to borrow from the next generation of Americans to pay for their overspending today.
Most Americans are coming to believe that our leaders in Washington, D.C., either cannot or will not take the steps necessary to stop this downward spiral.
The framers of the United States Constitution believed in a limited federal government, and that all other power would be reserved to the states. They intended for the states to be the final check on the power of the federal government. I believe that our current fiscal situation is exactly what our Founding Fathers feared, and it is therefore time for states to exercise this control.
The U.S. Constitution provides two methods to propose Constitutional amendments. This first is for two-thirds of each house of Congress to propose a particular amendment, which is the mechanism that has been used in the past. The second is for two-thirds of the states to call for a “convention of states” to propose amendments. Under either plan, proposed amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of states.
Because Washington, D.C., lacks the political will to act, I have filed HJR 8, which sets forth Iowa’s application to Congress for a convention of states under Article V of the U.S. Constitution. Our resolution calls for this convention of states to propose an amendment “to impose fiscal restraints on the federal government and limit the federal government’s power and jurisdiction.”
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Iowans! Contact your state representative today and voice your support for HJR 8!
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