Yesterday I talked about the new book by Mark Levin. He explains the constitutional problem in The Liberty Amendments and then proposes a constitutional remedy.

A major concern with the federal government is out of control spending. The country is headed over a financial cliff unless we can limit the spending and money printing by the government. Congress continues to spend using continuing resolutions. At other times they have adopted omnibus spending bills that are so large no member of Congress even reads it.

The federal debt now stands at about $17 trillion. But that does not even include the unfunded liabilities of various entitlements that push the total to around $100 trillion. Obviously, we cannot continue to spend like this without facing the same consequences that have befallen countries like Greece.

Related to this spending has been the huge expansion of the federal bureaucracy. In many ways, the federal bureaucracy has superseded the legislative branch. In 2011, Congress passed and the president signed 81 laws. During that same period, various federal regulatory agencies issued 3,807 final rules.

Mark Levin proposes an amendment where Congress must adopt a preliminary budget and submit that budget to the President. If they fail to do so, or if the President fails to sign the budget into law, there will be an automatic, across-the-board 5 percent reduction in expenditures from the prior year’s fiscal budget. Total outlays shall not exceed receipts for that fiscal year. And total outlays shall not exceed a percentage of the Nation’s gross domestic product.

Various federal departments and agencies must be reauthorized every three years by the majority vote of both Houses of Congress. Regulations that exceed a set dollar amount shall be submitted to a permanent Joint Committee of Congress for review and approval.

His amendments would be an effective way to slow the expansive growth of the federal government. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.