Fortune published FFSF board members Steve Hanke and Dave Walker’s op edit, The deficit just grew by $955 billion in 7 months. It’s time for a constitutional fix to control the budget
Congress has most recently focused attention on a pair of companion resolutions, H. Res. 981 and S. Res. 654, commonly referred to as the “3% Resolutions.” Together, the resolutions express the “sense of” the House and Senate that Congress should reduce future annual federal budget deficits to 3 percent of GDP or less by the end of fiscal year 2030, and pursue a balanced budget thereafter. This is the same format as that contained in the recommendations of Obama’s 2010 Fiscal Commission. However, these “3% Resolutions,” like most Congressional resolutions, are hardly worth the paper they are written on. Indeed, they create no obligation, carry no penalty, and can be ignored.
It is clear that constitutional strictures are needed to eliminate the federal government’s addiction to fiscal irresponsibility. As history has shown, nothing short of a constitutional constraint will firmly bind the hands of a Congress that has for half a century demonstrated that it cannot bind its own.
Under Article V, the Congress “shall call” a convention to consider one or more amendments if two-thirds (34) of the states file applications. As it turns out, thirty-nine states had active applications on file for a constitutional convention that would consider a fiscal-responsibility amendment in 1979 and for many years thereafter. Yet, Congress failed to call a convention. Those findings, first documented by the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, were confirmed by the state-created National Federalism Commission in September 2025 and entered into the Congressional Record in December 2025. Congress’s obligation under Article V is non-discretionary. But Congress has refused to act on the 39 applications for an Article V convention. Unlike a non-binding resolution, a fiscal responsibility amendment would be enforceable, durable, and immune to the political winds that blow through Washington.
Members of Congress took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Article V of the Constitution gives them the tool. It is time for Congress to do its job and call a limited Article V Convention to propose a fiscal responsibility amendment.