Op-Ed: When Washington Won’t act, “We the People” Must!

Recently it was reported that our national debt increased by one trillion in just last five months. In the very near future our total national debt will hit a whopping 40 TRILLION dollars.

It’s more than obvious that those in Washington can’t and/or won’t deal with this national emergency.

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers placed Article 5 in the US Constitution. Article 5 gives us, “We the People”, the ability to act when congress won’t.

Today, over 75% of Idahoans support adding a Balanced Budget Amendment to our Constitution.

It’s the same amendment Ronald Reagan called for back in 1982. Reagan warned about the catastrophic consequences of unchecked national spending and debt, he concluded:

“I now believe that a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget is the only way to restore fiscal discipline in Washington. If Congress refuses to act, the states should use their constitutional authority to call a convention to propose amendments” Ronald Reagan, 1982

28 states have followed Reagans council and adopted resolutions calling for an Article 5 convention to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. Now it’s time for Idaho’s legislature to act and adopt our own resolution.

Article 5 is in the US Constitution. It isn’t symbolic. It isn’t radical. It’s a sober, constitutional response to a Congress that has talked for forty years and done nothing, all the while burying future generations under a mountain of debt.

I wasn’t always a fiscal conservative.

In 1980, the first year I could vote for president, I was at a friend’s house when a Ronald Reagan campaign ad came on TV. I said, “I don’t think I’ll vote for Reagan. I heard he wants to cut some government program.”

My friend’s father looked up and asked, “Where do you think the money for that program comes from?”

“From the government,” I said.

“And where does the government get its money?”

I didn’t know. No one had ever asked me that.

Two hours later, I left that house a dyed-in-the-wool Reagan Republican and a fiscal conservative. Once I understood that every dollar Washington spends ultimately comes from the people, I never saw government spending the same way again.

When Reagan was elected in 1980, the national debt was under $1 trillion.

It took the United States more than 200 years: through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, two world wars, and the Great Depression, to reach that number.

Then something broke.

By 2000, the debt had exploded to $5 trillion. No world wars. No Great Depression. Just business as usual in Washington.

Fast-forward another twenty-six years: the national debt now stands at $38 trillion and is sprinting toward $40 trillion.

Today, federal deficits are nearly $2 TRILLION A YEAR! Think about it: it took our country over 200 years to accumulate 1 trillion in debt and today annual deficits are two times that amount.

That’s not an accident. It’s not partisan. It’s a systemic failure.

For more than four decades, Republican party platforms have supported a Balanced Budget Amendment.

• 1980s: “We call for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution”
• 1992: “Republicans vigorously support a balanced budget constitutional amendment.”
• 1996: “We believe in a balanced budget amendment.”
• 2000, 2012, 2020: the same call, repeated again and again.

Forty years of talk.


Forty years of lip service.


Forty years of failure.

And it hasn’t mattered who’s in control, Republican or Democrat. Deficits grow. Debt soars. Washington spends as if arithmetic no longer applies and today’s annual deficits of nearly $2 trillion are the largest in our nation’s history.

This is exactly why the Founders put Article V in the US Constitution.

Some people believe that our Founding Fathers made a mistake by including Article 5 in the US Constitution. They believe that our Founding Fathers were wrong in thinking that “We the People” should be given the authority to act when congress refuses to act. I could not disagree more.

Article V isn’t a threat to the Constitution; it is in the Constitution. It’s the safety valve the Founders created for moments like this, when Congress refuses to act. It empowers the states, We the People, to step in when Washington won’t fulfill its duty.

And there is no clearer case of congressional malpractice than $38 trillion in debt.

This amounts to generational theft, one generation stealing from the next, robbing their prosperity, their freedom, and their future.

No generation in American history has done more to shackle the next generation.

Support for a Balanced Budget Amendment spans the conservative movement: Donald Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Governor Brad Little, Lieutenant Governor Scott Bedke, Mike Huckabee, and every sitting

Republican governor in the country.

That is good company.

Opposition, meanwhile, comes from the usual suspects: the Democratic National Committee, the American Socialist Party, the John Birch Society, and every Democratic governor in the nation.

For the sake of our children and grandchildren, I urge you to contact your State Legislators and ask them to stand up for fiscal responsibility and join the call for a Balanced Budget Amendment and use Article V to make it happen.

This approach is consistent.


It’s constitutional.


It’s conservative.

And it’s long overdue.