Article 5 of the Constitution provides the States the ability to call a Convention of States in order to propose Amendments to the Constitution. The only thing that may not be changed is the equal suffrage of the Senate. Equal suffrage of the senate means that each state gets the same number of Senators; the number isn’t based on the population of the State. This is my list of proposed amendments to the Constitution:
- Federal Employees. ANY federal employee may be fired with no benefits by agreement of 2/3 of the States.
- Income Tax. Amendment of the 16th amendment – the income tax amendment. The States shall collect a 15% income tax of earned income. 5% of this tax shall be conveyed to the Federal Government. No refunds, no loopholes. 2020 personal income across the US was approximately $20T. So the Fed would receive approximately $1 Trillion per year. The States would retain the rest of the collected income tax. In my vision, the States would use this to maintain its infrastructure, schools, national guard, medicare/medicade and all the other stuff usurped by the Fed. In other words, the Fed would only do the work as specified in the Constitution which is to 1) Provide for the common defense and 2) regulate interstate commerce. From the government’s own budget data, in 2019 the Fed raked in approximately 3.5T and spent approximately 4.5T (https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/historical-tables/). This single amendment has been the method used to keep We The People under the thumb of the Fed and to strip power from the States. This would serve to eliminate the hundreds of thousands of unelected bureaucrats waiting to enjoy their cushy Fed retirements.
- Lying by the Press. The Bill of Rights, Amendments 1 ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…’. Let us talk about freedom of the press. Laws have been made – for example, the press is not exempt from defamation lawsuits based on their reporting. So, as laws have been made and upheld, let us have a law forbidding lies by the press.
- Judicial System. Article III of the Constitution states “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Let us have an amendment stating the number of judges on the Supreme Court shall be set at 9. There should be NO lifetime appointments. Let us amend this by providing a term limit for all Federal Judges to go along with the ‘Good Behavior’ clause. In my vision, 20 years would be a good term limit for Federal Judges. That, along with #1 above, would ensure We The People are well served and not just paying for a political hack to die on the bench. The number and jurisdiction size of the lower courts needs to be adjusted. As I am no expert on this topic, I will leave this to further research.
- Congress may not amend the Constitution. A Convention of States will be the only method of amending the Constitution.
This is my first list. Of the items in the above list, fixing the Income Tax is the most important. The current system is fueling tyranny.