COS: Which Way To A Better Constitution?

Did we start out with a bad constitution?
Or did it just get worse with each amendment we added?
Or did the social pressures and bad jurists corrupt it?

  Whatever the cause, our system is failing (or are we failing our system?). Of late we've been mulling over additional solutions. For 30+ years we have been calling for a Balanced Budget Federal Amendment. Recently there has been a formidable push for the state legislatures to bypass the federal congress and draft their own proposal, to be circulated for the necessary ratification.

Fears

  The Convention of States idea has fans and foes. There are worries of a runaway process creating a terrible proposal. There are speculations that nothing could meet the approval of the required 3/4 of states needed to ratify an amendment.
  There are also those who think the rift between states could blow up into a dissolution of our current republic. Some constitutional scholars wonder if the process originally designed for 13 states, can remain workable for 50?

It's easier to say 'no' to ideas we either don't understand or don't have a certain level of comfortable experience with. To some degree we need to make sure we know what we are experimenting with before committing to it. If we send a delegation to a convened group, can we recall them and stop the process? Is there a need to?

Suppose a convention of state delegations actually drafts a proposed amendment for a mandated balanced federal budget? What's next? How many states have to ratify it?

More importantly, what happens to states who refuse to ratify it? Is there a political will to force them into compliance? Will we see massive demonstrations and riots like other nations in default have experienced?

It sounds like a risky thing to do, doesn't it?

But what are the other options? We could wait for our current system to go into default. That seems to be fairly eminent, given the annual spending binges of the past 14 years. Congress seems far less interested in balancing the budget than ever. Sure, our own politicians make stump speeches about it, but when has it ever passed even one congressional house?

So our future in this republic looks difficult and we are all sorting through the options of what process of reform to advocate.

One thing I am certain of...

  We will be deciding on some scary options in the next decade, and as each year of this current trend does it's damage, our options for avoiding fiscal pain become smaller. Perhaps there is a safer solution than a Convention of States? If so, I really want to know what it is and what are the chances of it's success? If we soon accept a Convention of States before a fiscal emergency, we have the luxury of more time to draft and ratify a well-planned solution. But if it has to be produced during an economic collapse, we may end up with a horrible fix and far more social unrest in the streets. The only option I find inexcusable is... doing nothing. Will we be complicit in stealing more wealth from our grandchildren? None of us think it's our own fault. And the funny thing is that when an avalanche wipes out a mountain village, no single snowsfake ever thinks he is responsible for the casualties.