Compact for America at Heartland Institute's Constitutional Reform Center
The Heartland Institute launched its “Constitutional Reform” project at the Marriott City Center in Dallas on Wednesday, August 26. Featured speakers included Nick Dranias of Compact for America Educational Foundation, former U.S. Rep. Allen West (R ) and former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, as well as constitutional scholars and advocates of a number of constitutional amendment projects, and Heartland’s CEO Joseph Bast. The event marked the beginning of Heartland’s effort to help
Everyday is Black Friday for Washington
Imagine if you had a limitless credit card you never had to repay on Black Friday. Now consider something a bit different: Imagine if, to keep your job, you had to compete for votes with someone who was willing to use that magic credit card to buy votes, build monuments, and otherwise do whatever it takes to get elected. How long would it be before you trampled over future generations in headlong pursuit of buying whatever shiny bauble kept you ahead of candidate Jones? If yo
This Thanksgiving: Remember the Seed Corn!
The Pilgrims learned the hard way that a bountiful harvest requires a moral commitment to preserving seed corn for the future. As we give thanks for the abundance we enjoy today, let us commit ourselves and our states to ensuring that Washington never forgets that lesson!
Six Bullets that Could Fix the Debt
No, it's not what you're thinking. The Compact Commission challenged me to create 6 bullet points that capture the benefits of the Compact for a Balanced Budget's compact “vehicle” for delivering its federal Balanced Budget Amendment “payload.” So here goes! Three bullets on the compact “vehicle”: Certainty: The Compact for a Balanced Budget delivers certainty by empowering the states to pre-commit 38 states and simple majorities of Congress to everything involved in advancin
Economist Krystal Slivinski Joins the Council of Scholars!
In terms of accomplishments, we're not sure which one is Rose and which one is Milton, but it sure is great to have two Slivinskis on the Council of Scholars! Professor Krystal Slivinski is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Grand Canyon University. Before teaching undergraduate and MBA economics at GCU, Professor Slivinski lobbied the Arizona Legislature to improve tax, budget, and regulatory policies. She also trained K-12 teachers to teach economics in a hands-on and e
Mercatus Study Supports Conclusion that Constitutional Debt Limits Matter
The Mercatus Center recently published a ranking of states by fiscal condition. You can read it here. This chart shows that every state had a balanced budget or a surplus except IL, KY, LA, MD, MA, NJ, NM and NY. That means 41 out of the 49 states that limit debt or require balanced budgets are not in the red. And that's with less-than-perfect constitutional debt limits. But that's not all. This chart shows that no state, not even New York, California or Illinois, has a per c
Enforce This: Part 7 in the 7 Part Compact BBA Series
Previously, we covered the first five substantive sections of the Compact's Balanced Budget Amendment. Section 1 imposes a spending limit. Section 2 imposes a debt limit. Section 3 specifies the state approval process for increasing the debt limit. Section 4 furnishes the impoundment mechanism for enforcing the debt limit. Section 5 limits taxation to the least destructive tax policies. After you learned about these substantive sections, we explained how section 6 furnishes t
Definitions Matter: Part 6 in the 7 Part Compact BBA Series
This posting is the sixth in a 7 part series explaining the Balanced Budget Amendment at the heart of the Compact for a Balanced Budget. Previously, we explained that section 1 of the model Balanced Budget Amendment ensures that the federal government cannot spend more than cash on hand from ordinary revenue sources and plain vanilla full faith and credit borrowing. Then we discussed how sections 2, 3, and 4 of the model Amendment set and enforce an initial constitutional deb
Tax Limit: Part 5 of the 7 Part Compact BBA Series
This posting is the fifth in a 7 posting series explaining the Balanced Budget Amendment at the heart of the Compact for a Balanced Budget. Previously, we explained that section 1 of the model Balanced Budget Amendment ensures that the federal government cannot spend more than cash on hand from ordinary revenue sources and plain vanilla full faith and credit borrowing. Then we discussed how sections 2, 3, and 4 of the model Amendment set and enforce an initial constitutional
Impoundment: Part 4 of 7 in the Compact BBA Series
This posting is the fourth in a 7 posting series explaining the Balanced Budget Amendment at the heart of the Compact for a Balanced Budget. Previously, we explained that section 1 of the Balanced Budget Amendment ensures that the federal government cannot spend more than cash on hand from ordinary revenue sources and plain vanilla full faith and credit borrowing. Then we discussed how sections 2 and 3 of the model Amendment sets an initial constitutional debt limit that limi
