To view this on the COS website, click here [[https://conventionofstates.com/news/only-one-choice-is-left|only-one-choice-is-left]] ---- ====== Only one choice is left ====== ---- |//Reproduced with permission from John Kerezy, [[https://www.eyeoncleveland.com|eyeoncleveland.com]] founder. Original post: https://eyeoncleveland.com/2025/10/01/shutdown-or-break-down///\\ \\ OCT. 1, 2025 — Congress failed to pass stopgap funding for federal agencies and programs before the new fiscal year began today. A shutdown of federal activities is happening again, the 22nd time since the modern budget process began in 1976, according to //USA Today//.\\ \\ The road to this impasse is filled with ever-greater political and economic Gordian knots. Our federal debt has doubled in just 10 years, from $18.5 trillion in late 2015 to over $37 trillion now. Interest payments alone on this debt were 6% of federal expenditures in 2015. PBS.org reports that is now up to 13%.\\ \\ Many more signs of this breakdown are apparent:\\ \\ * Moody’s Investor Services in May downgraded its US debt rating to Aa1 from Aaa, citing deficits and rising interest costs. It’s the first time ever that all three credit rating agencies downgraded US debt.\\ * In June, the Social Security Administration announced that its trust fund will be depleted in FY 2033. Fortune magazine then warned of a 23% cut in benefits in an article written last month, calling the report a “Social Security tsunami.” \\ * The Peterson Foundation (the debt clock organization) reported earlier this month that July’s passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) “kicked the debt can down the road” again, increasing the debt ceiling this time to $41.1 trillion.\\ * The current U.S. federal government debt of more than $37 trillion is about the same value as the combined economies of China, Germany, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom (again, according to the Peterson Foundation)\\ * Presidents of both political parties and Congress have now raised the debt ceiling 91 times, going back to 1959. And the Brookings Institution believes that the most recent raising of the debt ceiling (in July) will only delay the next deficit/debt showdown by a year or two. \\ \\ OBBBA’s passage also demonstrated that bipartisanship has died in Washington. Not a single Democrat in either Congressional chamber backed the bill. This could be a long government shutdown.\\ \\ It’s time: **Let’s admit that Washington DC is broken, and then find ways to fix it.**\\ \\ ===== Just one solution can fix this problem =====\\ \\ Fortunately, those who wrote the Constitution foresaw that too much power could end up in the hands of the federal government. That’s why Article V exists, to improve our Constitution through amendments.\\ \\ One path for amendments, used exclusively thus far, comes from Congress. But there’s a second path, proposing amendments from the states themselves. Already, 19 US states have passed resolutions to initiate a process called an Article V convention of states for amending the Constitution. Ohio (my home state) could be the 20th to do so. If 34 states pass the same resolution, it triggers a state convention for proposing amendments.\\ \\ Naysayers — and there are many on both the left and right wings of the political spectrum — say it hasn’t been done. But they aren’t paying much attention to their history books, because past COS movements have helped change governance in a positive way through Constitutional amendments. Here are a couple of examples:\\ \\ * The U.S. House passed what’s now the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, the popular election of Senators, many times, only to have the Senate refuse to even consider the legislation. But when 31 state legislatures approved a COS resolution — only one shy of the number needed then to trigger it — the Senate suddenly did a 180-degree turnaround and passed it in 1912. The amendment was ratified a year later.\\ * According to the Congressional Research Service, 21 states granted women full or partial voting rights between 1869 and 1917. These states helped propel Congress to adopt the 19th Amendment, women’s suffrage, in 1919.\\ * There have been 11 past or ongoing Article V movements in the United States. Compare that to just 17 amendments to the U.S. Constitution adopted since the first ten, the Bill of Rights, was adopted in the early 1790s. One of them was a catalyst for the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. See the downloadable list below.\\ \\ [[https://conventionofstates.com/files/article-v-history-download|{{https://content.conventionofstates.com/cosaction-prod/public/content/images/101163/101163_original.png?1307x1238}}]]\\ \\ [[https://conventionofstates.com/files/article-v-history-download|Article V History Download Here]]\\ \\ So, a state-initiated process to change our Constitution and fix much of what’s broken exists, and history bears out that it can succeed. **All it takes is political will at the state level to accomplish it.**\\ \\ ===== Phony warnings =====\\ \\ The John Birch Society (on the right), Common Cause (on the left), and several other political advocacy groups are whining about a COS, complaining about the prospect of a “runaway” convention if one was called.  But they are phony warnings, for two reasons:\\ \\ - The COS resolutions which 19 states have already passed are limited to proposing amendments that have three purposes: imposing fiscal restraints on the federal government, reducing the government’s power and jurisdiction, and establishing term limits for members of Congress and other government officials. If a convention took action outside of these three, how long do you think it would take Common Cause or some other advocacy group to file a lawsuit and obtain a temporary injunction stopping the process?\\ - Additionally, 38 states must ratify any proposed COS amendments, emanating from either the states or from Congress. This is also per Article V of our Constitution. Blue states, red states, every state has an equal say in the ratification process. This unalterable reality also proves just how hollow the “sky is falling” admonitions from political advocacy organizations really are.  (Hint: they raise $$$ for their organizations by using it as a red herring fallacy.)\\ \\ ===== Only 20 years? Or another 250?   =====\\ \\ In his landmark book //Alexander Hamilton//, author Ron Chernow  wrote that George Washington doubted that the new federal government under the Constitution would last 20 years. In Federalist Papers No. 85, Hamilton admitted that the Constitution was not a perfect document, but seeking perfection would only prolong national instability. He points out that the document itself and its built-in methods of amending the Constitution would help advance a democratic republic, and assure people of their individual liberties and property rights.\\ \\ Over the 238 years since it was completed, the Constitution has served America extraordinarily well. No other nation has a governing document which both solved so many problems at its inception and also has the component of change and improvement – through amendments – baked into it.\\ \\ Next year, the United States celebrates 250 years of independence. But we the people know today that our governance needs reforms. In poll after poll, vast majorities of Americans support term limits and a balanced budget for our nation. But Congress won’t reign in its own excesses. Marcy Kaptur (42 years in office) Nancy Pelosi (38 years), Chuck Grassley (44 years) and Mitch McConnell (40 years) are the poster people for the need for federal term limits.\\ \\ {{https://content.conventionofstates.com/cosaction-prod/public/content/images/101164/101164_original.png?1470x1588}}SOURCE: Peter G. Peterson Foundation\\ \\ Another key aspect of what’s wrong with Washington DC today is that too much power rests on the banks of the Potomac. You and I cannot go into a bank and borrow $109,000 today simply because we want to, but our federal government has run up a debt that is now more than that – per capita – for every person in the U.S.\\ \\ We can’t have the same job for 30 or 40 years, but members of Congress use political action committee funds and political party resources to keep their positions of power that long.\\ \\ It was the U.S. states, through the 1787 Constitutional Convention process, which created the federal government. There are supposed to be checks and balances, with significant power resting in the hands of our state elected officials. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution quantifies this concept of federalism, dividing power between national and state governments, and includes power to us – the people – as well. The exact wording is precise: **“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”**\\ \\ If more political power rests at the state and local levels, that would help make sure we don’t have intractable problems at the federal level. Only an Article V state convention to propose amendments can help restore us to a balance we most desperately need.\\ \\ One of our nation’s most esteemed legal scholars, Sanford Levinson teaches at the University of Texas and writes in the areas of constitutional law, legal history, and foreign and international law. In a paper titled “Article V: Time for a Tune Up” written in the Drake Law Review, Levinson says this:\\ \\ **//No question is more important than this: Will those of us now in our sunset years pass down an adequate constitutional heritage to our children, grandchildren, and those who will follow them in what we hope will be a flourishing U.S. constitutional order? If—as I believe is the case—that requires significant reforms, then so be it. The most unequivocally attractive legacy of the Framers was their willingness to ask audacious questions and to do what was necessary when they viewed proper answers as being stymied by imbecilic forms. To behave differently ourselves is not only to dishonor what is most admirable about the generation of the Framers but also to condemn us and our own descendants to an ever-more-bleak future.//**\\ \\ Download Professor Levinson’s paper [[https://conventionofstates.com/files/article-v-time-for-a-tune-up|HERE]].\\ \\ ===== Your turn =====\\ \\ If the shutdown/debt crisis has your attention and — like Professor Levinson — you don’t want us and our descendants to travel down an ever-more-bleak road ahead, you only need five minutes now to take some action. Here are the steps:\\ \\ Visit this website and sign a petition calling for a Convention of States (COS) along the lines listed in this story.  https://conventionofstates.com\\ \\ Find out if your state has passed a resolution calling for an Article V convention. If it hasn’t, contact your state legislator(s) and ask them to take up the Convention of States resolution.\\ \\ If you live in Ohio, the current resolutions [[https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/api/v2/general_assembly_136/legislation/hjr2/00_IN/pdf/|HJR]] 2 and [[https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/api/v2/general_assembly_136/legislation/sjr3/00_IN/pdf/|SJR 3]] would add Ohio to states calling for a COS. You can look up who your representatives are here:   https:%%//%%www.ohiohouse.gov/ (fill out “Who Represents Me”  and https:%%//%%www.legislature.ohio.gov/members/senate-directory    Tell them you want Ohio to pass the Convention of States resolution.\\ A COS is really the last option. Let’s do it now, before our breakdown becomes an even greater political and economic disaster.\\ \\ //Kerezy is an associate professor at Cuyahoga Community College. These views are his own, and not those of the college or any other organization with which Kerezy is affiliated. Additionally, he is not affiliated with nor employed by the Convention of States or Convention of States Action.//\\ \\ **SOME SOURCES CITED**\\ \\ **USA Today** \\ \\ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/28/us-government-shutdown-history-timeline/86407107007/\\ \\ **Brookings Institution**\\ \\ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-hutchins-center-explains-the-debt-limit/\\ \\ **PBS News Hour, September 18, 2025, How debt interest is becoming a bigger problem for the U.S. government, retrieved from:** https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-debt-interest-is-becoming-a-bigger-problem-for-the-u-s-government\\ \\ **Fortune, “The Social Security tsunami: Payments could be cut by 23%, doubling the poverty rate for America’s seniors,” Ashley Lutz, August 8, 2025, retrieved from:** https://fortune.com/2025/08/08/social-security-when-run-out-money-payment-outlook-retirement/\\ \\ **Peter G. Peterson Foundation,** https://www.pgpf.org/article/debt-ceiling-update-whats-at-stake/\\ \\ **Congressional Research Service,** https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20190708_R45805_d2358b9d78eecae5116b284d1efbe28ac90e5b93.html#:~:text=States%20That%20Passed%20Full%20Universal,prior%20to%20the%20Nineteenth%20Amendment.&text=Source:%20Congressional%20Research%20Service\\ \\ Chernow, Ron, //**Alexander Hamilton**//, Penguin Books, 2004, page 241.\\ \\ Levinson, Sanford, “Article V: Time for a Tune Up,” Drake Law Review, pps. 913-939, Volume 67, 2019.\\ \\  \\ \\ | | ---- | __Page Metadata__ || |Login Required to view? |No | |Created: |2025-10-02 01:02 GMT| |Updated: |2025-10-02 01:49 GMT| |Published: |2025-10-02 01:49 GMT| |Converted: |2025-11-11 12:06 GMT| |Change Author: |Diana Telles | |Credit Author: |John Kerezy |