Amendment to Reaffirm the Constitution and Limit Governmental Power

Section 1.

The President shall not deploy or quarter troops abroad without the consent of Congress, through a Declaration of War, unless in times of emergency in which the nation, or people within the nation’s borders, are in imminent danger.

Section 2.

Congress shall make no law without explicit jurisdiction derived from the Constitution which shall be put forth in accompanying documentation. Laws challenged in the Judiciary without such documentation shall be required to put forth explicit Constitutional jurisdiction in documentation in a speedy manner.

Section 3.

Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on income so long that the tax system is impartial to religious or political affiliation, age, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, or marital status, and does not reward or penalise any specific behaviour or character.

Section 4.

No representative of the Government shall receive compensation, neither in payment nor gift, in return for influence over legislation from any source.

I think the argument between free market and fair market individuals has been going on for long enough and it’s about time someone proposed a new figure in the equation. The parties today represent two sides of the same coin, one expounds the belief that our government should protect the freedom of commerce while the other believes that our government should control aspects of commerce. Both the power of commerce and the government has slowly risen year after year so now we only hear the slight ebb and flow of power between the two. Both parties, while arguing bitterly, have created a governmental system which benefits only commerce and government at the expense of the true sovereign power of any democratic nation, the people.

To any reasonable business person, the only people that truly matter are the customers: without them there would be no business. Likewise, our founders created a government in which all power was derived from the consent of the people: without people there would be no government. Often I feel that our current parties have forgotten this simple fact, and we have returned to the days in which absolute despotism reigns, although under a democratic guise. I believe power should flow amongst the three constituents—the people, commerce, and government—although with the acknowledgment that all power originates from the people. If we forget that last fact, we end up with government for its own sake, business for its own sake, and, worst of all, business and government in concert working for their own sake.

My proposed amendment redresses a few key grievances that I see as an affront to the power of the people: mainly the enlarged power of the Executive and the enlarged power of Congress in regard to law making, taxation, and partiality to certain interests.

First and foremost, the power of the President has grown beyond the execution of law to a domain in which the President has absolute power over the entire government. This absolute power derives from control of the military which has become the most expensive portion of the government’s discretionary spending. Through this, the executive can now bankrupt our entire nation with costly foreign activities. The original founders countered this eventuality by requiring Congress to provide a declaration of war in Article 1, Section 8; however, they failed to anticipate that Congress would usurp the consent of the people and diminish their own power while providing the President with the ability to deploy troops without a declaration of war, ie. the War Powers Resolution. My attempt to diminish these powers is two-fold. Section 1 reiterates the requirement for the government to abide by Article 1 Section 8 so that Congress regains structural control of the military. Secondly, I attempt to reiterate and reinforce the spirit of the Third Amendment by expanding its power to all activities of our military, both foreign and domestic. Had the founders assumed we would become an aggressor nation, as England was at the time of the Revolution, they would have included such a statement; however, it was assumed our military would solely be used for defense.

My focus for the second section is the reiteration of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Congress has passed many, many laws which have no Constitutional authority. Explicitly within the last two amendments of the Bill of Rights is the reservation of all rights to the people not enumerated to Congress and the States, and the idea that even the enumerated rights shall not infringe upon the rights of the people. As late as 1919, people still felt that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land and Congress was beholden to it, and as such felt it necessary to provision the Constitution with a prohibition of alcohol, granting Congress power to legislate on that singular issue. Since then our government has forgotten what its enumerated powers are and has taken more and more power and choice from the people, banning the proliferation of “illicit substances”, “illicit images”, and “illicit language”, while promoting ephemeral social ideas such as segregation and affirmative action, and allowing some marriages while banning other marriages. It is comical to me that at one time people felt they had to change the Constitution for a singular item like alcohol when today Congress can ban anything from harsh words to a particular cigarette brand without a single reference to the enumerated power that allows them to do so. I support an idea, that I have heard before, in which Congress must clearly reiterate their enumerated power in each piece of legislation they wish to pass. Additionally, in accordance with ex post facto, existing laws shall not be required to abide by the new Amendment until challenged in a court of law.

A legitimate government, with power derived from consent of the people, must have laws that the people can understand and abide, but who can understand or abide by a law that is over 54,000 pages long? Legitimate government must also treat all people equally under the law, but our income tax is amongst the most guilty of laws for treating people unfairly. Within its complexities are thousands of unfair agendas, designed to engineer the people into certain actions without their knowledge or consent. For example, the government encourages home ownership as a quick way to raise GDP and as a result has provided mortgage deductions and numerous home ownership credits. Unfortunately, this discriminates against low income renters who cannot gain access to these deductions. The IRS code also promotes bigger government by providing tax breaks and incentives to those who buy government bonds while double taxing dividend income and other corporate investment. Another example is the marriage tax penalty which originally was not a penalty but a reward. In 1969 the reward became a penalty, and in 2003 became a reward once again. Then there’s the single parent tax credits. If you have one child you get a small credit, and if you have more children you get larger credits, but if you invest or save some money—say, for your children’s education—outside of IRS approved accounts, your credits are taken away. My proposition would require Congress to create a tax system that treats all people equally by removing the rewards of credits and deductions, and the penalties of the AMT and investing. All persons, no matter their social circumstance, should be taxed equally with a person in the same circumstance.

The final section is focused not only on diminishing the power of the government, but limiting the power of special interests. The power of special interests has been important in American history since its founding, but in the past, influence was much harder to garner when Representatives met only a few months per year. Being a Representative now is a full time job, and quite often the Representatives rarely return to their represented states. I see the detachment of Representatives from their electors as the reason for the expansion of special interest power, and I write this section of my proposed Amendment with special attention to lobbyists and the activities of businesses, social advocates, and unions who all disregard the power of the people for the combined strength of business and government. The fact that lobbying is now an everyday part of business in Washington, that billions of dollars from the oil, drug, tobacco, auto, teaching, alcohol, investment, and recently tech industries are now flowing into Washington, that there are ex-Representatives earning six-figure incomes for their “services” is evidence enough that power is pooling at the capital when, truly, the power should be derived from only one place: the consent of the people. I propose to Constitutionally ban this flow of money from businesses, unions, and special interest groups into Washington so that it could be better spent employing people, developing new technologies, contributing to grassroots causes, education, or whatever else billions of dollars could go towards. I make my departure from free market people, who prefer all lobbyists to have their “freedom”, and also my departure from fair market people, who prefer their specific industries—whether business, governmental, or union—to have their “freedom”. I think the Representatives should never forget who their constituents are, who gave them their power, and who can take it away.

This is only the first Amendment I propose to right some of the wrongs with our current government, but there are many other issues which I feel only Amendments to the Constitution will right. Among these, I would propose an Amendment for a balanced budget and an Amendment guaranteeing all people an economical education with the fundamental choice of school. Perhaps soon I will have time to write about these other issues.