The Liberty Amendments Part 5

Spending SECTION 1: Congress shall adopt a preliminary fiscal year budget no later than the first Monday in May for the following fiscal year, and submit said budget to the President for consideration.

SECTION 2: Shall Congress fail to adopt a final fiscal year budget prior to the start of each fiscal year, which shall commence on October 1 of each year, and shall the President fail to sign said budget into law, an automatic, across-the-board, 5 percent reduction in expenditures from the prior year's fiscal budget shall be imposed for the fiscal year in which a budget has not been adopted.

SECTION 3: Total outlays of the federal government for any fiscal year shall not exceed its receipts for that fiscal year.

SECTION 4: Total outlays of the federal government for each fiscal year shall not exceed 17.5 percent of the Nation's gross domestic product for the previous calendar year.

SECTION 5: Total receipts shall include all receipts of the United States Government but shall not include those derived from borrowing. Total outlays shall include all outlays of the United States Government except those for the repayment of debt princ.i.p.al.

SECTION 6: Congress may provide for a one-year suspension of one or more of the preceding sections in this Article by a three-fifths vote of both Houses of Congress, provided the vote is conducted by roll call and sets forth the specific excess of outlays over receipts or outlays over 17.5 percent of the Nation's gross domestic product.

SECTION 7: The limit on the debt of the United States held by the public shall not be increased unless three-fifths of both Houses of Congress shall provide for such an increase by roll call vote.

SECTION 8: This Amendment shall take effect in the fourth fiscal year after its ratification.

Taxing SECTION 1: Congress shall not collect more than 15 percent of a person's annual income, from whatever source derived. "Person" shall include natural and legal persons.

SECTION 2: The deadline for filing federal income tax returns shall be the day before the date set for elections to federal office.

SECTION 3: Congress shall not collect tax on a decedent's estate.

SECTION 4: Congress shall not inst.i.tute a value-added tax or national sales tax or any other tax in kind or form.

SECTION 5: This Amendment shall take effect in the fourth fiscal year after its ratification.

An Amendment to Limit the Federal Bureaucracy

SECTION 1: All federal departments and agencies shall expire if said departments and agencies are not individually reauthorized in stand-alone reauthorization bills every three years by a majority vote of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

SECTION 2: All Executive Branch regulations exceeding an economic burden of $100 million, as determined jointly by the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office, shall be submitted to a permanent Joint Committee of Congress, hereafter the Congressional Delegation Oversight Committee, for review and approval prior to their implementation.

SECTION 3: The Committee shall consist of seven members of the House of Representatives, four chosen by the Speaker and three chosen by the Minority Leader; and seven members of the Senate, four chosen by the Majority Leader and three chosen by the Minority Leader. No member shall serve on the Committee beyond a single three-year term.

SECTION 4: The Committee shall vote no later than six months from the date of the submission of the regulation to the Committee. The Committee shall make no change to the regulation, either approving or disapproving the regulation by majority vote as submitted.

SECTION 5: If the Committee does not act within six months from the date of the submission of the regulation to the Committee, the regulation shall be considered disapproved and must not be implemented by the Executive Branch.

An Amendment to Promote Free Enterprise.

SECTION 1: Congress's power to regulate Commerce is not a plenary grant of power to the federal government to regulate and control economic activity but a specific grant of power limited to preventing states from impeding commerce and trade between and among the several States.

SECTION 2: Congress's power to regulate Commerce does not extend to activity within a state, whether or not it affects interstate commerce; nor does it extend to compelling an individual or ent.i.ty to partic.i.p.ate in commerce or trade.

An Amendment to Protect Private Property.

SECTION 1: When any governmental ent.i.ty acts not to secure a private property right against actions that injure property owners, but to take property for a public use from a property owner by actual seizure or through regulation, which taking results in a market value reduction of the property, interference with the use of the property, or a financial loss to the property owner exceeding $10,000, the government shall compensate fully said property owner for such losses.

An Amendment to Grant the States Authority to Directly Amend the Const.i.tution.

SECTION 1: The State Legislatures, whenever two-thirds shall deem it necessary, may adopt Amendments to the Const.i.tution.

SECTION 2: Each State Legislature adopting said Amendments must adopt Amendments identical in subject and wording to the other State Legislatures.

SECTION 3: A six-year time limit is placed on the adoption of an Amendment, starting from the date said Amendment is adopted by the first State Legislature. Each State Legislature adopting said Amendment shall provide an exact copy of the adopted Amendment, along with an affidavit signed and dated by the Speaker of the State Legislature, to the Archivist of the United States within fifteen calendar days of its adoption.

SECTION 4: Upon adoption of an Amendment, a State Legislature may not rescind the Amendment or modify it during the six-year period in which the Amendment is under consideration by the several States' Legislatures.

An Amendment to Grant the States Authority to Check Congress.

SECTION 1: There shall be a minimum of thirty days between the engrossing of a bill or resolution, including amendments, and its final pa.s.sage by both Houses of Congress. During the engrossment period, the bill or resolution shall be placed on the public record, and there shall be no changes to the final bill or resolution.

SECTION 2: SECTION 1 may be overridden by two-thirds vote of the members of each House of Congress.

SECTION 3: Upon three-fifths vote of the state legislatures, the States may override a federal statute.

SECTION 4: Upon three-fifths vote of the state legislatures, the States may override Executive Branch regulations exceeding an economic burden of $100 million after said regulations have been finally approved by the Congressional Delegation Oversight Committee [see An Amendment Establis.h.i.+ng How the States May Amend the Const.i.tution].

SECTION 5: The States' override shall not be the subject of litigation or review in any Federal or State court, or oversight or interference by Congress or the President.

SECTION 6: The States' override authority must be exercised no later than twenty-four months from the date the President has signed the statute into law, or the Congressional Delegation Oversight Committee has approved a final regulation, after which the States are prohibited from exercising the override.

An Amendment to Protect the Vote.

SECTION 1: Citizens in every state, territory, and the District of Columbia shall produce valid photographic identification doc.u.ments demonstrating evidence of their citizens.h.i.+p, issued by the state government for the state in which the voter resides, as a prerequisite for registering to vote and voting in any primary or general election for President, Vice President, and members of Congress.

SECTION 2: Provisions shall be made by the state legislatures to provide such citizens.h.i.+p-designated photographic identification doc.u.ments at no cost to individuals unable to afford fees a.s.sociated with acquiring such doc.u.ments.

SECTION 3: Early voting in any general election for President, Vice President, and members of Congress shall not be held more than thirty calendar days prior to the national day of election except for active-duty military personnel, for whom early voting shall not commence more than forty-five calendar days prior to the national day of election.

SECTION 4: Where registration and/or voting is not in person but by mail, citizens must submit an approved citizen-designated photo identification and other reliable information to state election officials to register to vote and request ballots for voting, no later than forty-five calendar days before the primary or general elections for President, Vice President, or members of Congress. Registration forms and ballots must be returned and signed by the voter and must either be mailed or hand-delivered by the voter to state election officials. If delivered by a third party, the voter must provide written authorization for the person making the delivery and the third party must sign a statement certifying that he did not unduly influence the voter's decisions.

SECTION 5: Electronic or other technology-based voting systems, for purposes of registering and voting in national elections, are proscribed unless a reliable identification and secure voting regimen is established by the state legislature.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I am blessed and grateful for the love and support of my wonderful family. They are my greatest inspiration and encouragement, and always have been.

Thank you to Eric Christensen, Richard Hutchison, Michael O'Neill, and Matthew Forys, my colleagues and friends, for their excellent insights and research a.s.sistance; Mitch.e.l.l Ivers, my longtime editor, for his superb advice; and my publisher, Louise Burke, for her steadfast support.

I also want to thank my treasured radio audience and the untold numbers of my fellow citizens who are committed, in small ways and large, to the restoration of the grand American Republic. We live in perilous times and the challenges are daunting. Yet we find strength and courage in our common bond as Americans. This is our generation's burden. We have our work cut out for us. But there is a way forward. The Const.i.tution.

MARK R. LEVIN, nationally syndicated talk-radio host and president of Landmark Legal Foundation, is the author of Liberty and Tyranny, the 38-week New York Times bestseller that spent three months at #1 and sold more than one million copies; and the #1 New York Times bestseller Ameritopia. His books Men in Black and Rescuing Sprite were also New York Times and national bestsellers. He has worked as an attorney in the private sector and as a top adviser to several members of President Reagan's cabinet. He holds a B.A. from Temple University and a J.D. from Temple University Law School. Follow Mark Levin on Twitter or visit www.marklevinshow.com.

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NOTES.

1. Restoring the American Republic.

1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Henry Reeve, trans., Phillips Bradley, ed., vol. 1 (New York: Library of America, 2004), 319.

2. Ibid., 329.

3. "Obama: We are 5 days away from FUNDAMENTALLy [sic] transforming America," uploaded Oct. 31, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cqN4NIEtOY (April 5, 2013).

4. Edward Felker, "Obama vows to be aggressive with regulation if Congress doesn't act," Was.h.i.+ngton Guardian, Energy Guardian, Feb. 13, 2013, http://www.was.h.i.+ngtonguardian.com/one-tango (April 5, 2013).

5. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (New York: Barnes & n.o.ble Cla.s.sics, 2006), 27778 (emphasis in original).

6. Ibid., 428.

7. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856).

8. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

9. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944).

10. "Fiscal Year 2013, Historical Tables, Budget of the U.S. Government," Office of Management and Budget, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files...o...b..budget/fy2013/a.s.sets/hist.pdf (March 17, 2013).

11. Ibid.

12. "CBO: Debt will be $7 trillion larger by 2023," Daily Caller, Feb. 6, 2013, http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/06/cbo-debt-to-increase-7-trillion-by-2023/ (April 5, 2013).

13. "Alert 496: Alert GAAP-Based U.S. Budget Deficit-Actual 2012 Federal Budget Deficit Hit $6.9 Trillion," American Business a.n.a.lytics & Research LLC, Jan. 17, 2013, http://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-496-alert-gaap-based-us-budget-deficit (March 17, 2013).

14. Detlev Schlicter, "Bubble trouble: Is there an end to endless quant.i.tative easing?" Feb. 22, 2013, http://detlevschlicter.com/2013/02/bubble-trouble-is-there-an-end-to-endless-quant.i.tative-easing/ (April 5, 2013).

15. Editorial, "Mrs. Pelosi's VAT-The Speaker floats a middle-cla.s.s tax hike," Wall Street Journal, Oct. 8, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574457512007010416.html (March 17, 2013).

16. Elizabeth MacDonald, "Beware of Congress's Threat to Tax 401Ks," Fox Business, Oct. 31, 2008, http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2008/10/31/beware-congresss-threat-tax-ks (April 5, 2013).

17. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 113.

18. Madison, The Federalist, 75.