This is the Greatest Existential Threat to the Republic

the States Must Save the Republic from the Federal Government's Dysfunction

What do you see when you look at the chart above? Hopefully you see what seems like wonderful news: the nation has not been this positive since 2009, the first year of the Obama Presidency.

Enjoy it while you can. This is a mirage. I don’t know how much longer it can last, but even though I want to stop here and just enjoy the optimism…I can’t. I know too much, and everything I was warned about in the late 1980s by one of my economics professors has played out. His end game is not a happy story.

We focus on national defense here, and I am as guilty as any in arguing about the nature of the tree I find the most interesting, while ignoring the forest fire around it.

Let’s start at my tree, then look at the forest for a bit.

We are halfway through the 2020s. Regulars know where this is going. It is time to repeat it. We are not going to see a big defense budget increase. It simply is not in the cards.

Let’s revisit 2021’s The 2020s Tri-Service Modernization Crunch by Mackenzie Eaglen and Hallie Coyne from the American Enterprise Institute.

…popular military blogger and Navy Cmdr. CDR Salamander (ret.) coined the phrase “Terrible 20s” to describe the modernization challenges before the US military this coming decade. He offered an ominous overview of the next 10 years as “that horrible mix of debt bombs, recapitalizing our SSBN [ballistic missile submarines] fleet, and the need to replace and modernize legacy aircraft, ships, and the concepts that designed them.”2 It is a bracing and accurate summary of the following analysis. In this case, the first step in addressing the problem is reminding the policymakers that it exists. The second step—incumbent on leaders in Congress, at the Pentagon, and in the White House—is being honest about the consequences. The third is generating the willpower and spending the political capital to pay for it.

I coined “The Terrible 20s” back in 2010. Let’s revisit a pull quote from back then.

If you continue to assume that CG(X) is dead, then you might get funding for the much needed DDG(X) follow-on for the DDG-51 class - might. That will be requested in light of the SSBN money sponge - and I don't see how with all the other needs in the 20's, we will be able to afford both a DDG(X) and a CG(X) - and there is a good chance that we will simply have to live with DDG-51 Flight III as our "new" platform through the beginning of the mid-21st Century.

I know that looking into the future is a fuzzy hobby. Heck, if you outlined in 2000 where we were in 2010 people would have said you were a nutty pessimist - so we can only see 2020 in very large, fuzzy pixels. The beginning of the mid-century (2030) is just a silly exercise in many ways - but one that needs to be done. There are known-knowns (DDG-1000 will be a rump, expensive class of ships, Ticos history, DDG-51 backbone, LCS decomm'n like flies), known-unknowns (will LCS even meet some of its promised ability and numbers, will DDG(X) be moving forward), and unknown-unknowns (Black Swan events), but still - 2020 is closer than we think, and there are economic facts that need to be looked at.

Huge challenge, one whose source is the lost decade we just came out of. You know, that "transformational" decade. The one that was to build the Fleet of the future. Well, it sure did, didn't it?

Look at what the Royal Navy is dealing with today, and it isn't a stretch to see similar challenges for ourselves. Look and learn - and perhaps we can mitigate the pain.

We'll be blogg'n about the 20's a lot down the road; let's call this an introduction to the Terrible 20's.

That was 15 years ago. 15 years from today is 2040. Pay attention.

This is all on borrowed time. Make no mistake, a calamity is baked into the cake that cannot be undone.

A generation that inherited a solvent nation, a victory in the Cold War, and a dominant position on the globe unseen in all of human history—threw away the concept of stewardship and will leave their offspring a mess no one will know how to clean up.

Of course, this is about more than The Terrible 20s. That is just a minor opening act of a three act tragedy as predictable as it will be nightmarish.

Of course, I am talking about the greatest existential threat to our nation and global prosperity: the debt bomb.

I am pretty much sure I will live to see it play out, but I unquestionably know that my now 20-something kids will see it.

What we are doing is unsustainable. When the music stops, no one will have a chair. Our descendants will throw our bones on dung heaps.

While there is fair weather, I am doing my best to make sure my immediate family will survive better than average when it comes. Will it be enough? I have no idea. No nation has ever seen this confluence of events before, and it is unavoidable.

Forget our concerns about defense spending. Now that we are spending more on the interest on our debt than we are on national defense, as a nation we have already signaled that we have forgotten. As a result, the external military threat has been bypassed by the fiscal threat not just to the USA, but to the entire developed world, including the People’s Republic of China. History may have different plans for us—making the future even my dystopian—but if not, the debt-bomb will go off in any event.

The demographics problem cannot be fixed, and the only solutions to the levels of debt we have—default or hyper-inflation—are catastrophic except for one narrow path with manageable pain, but that requires action before crisis. With each passing year, the path gets more and more narrow. Eventually, it will be too narrow to pass through, then we are left with default or hyper-inflation. Either of those will end this republic.

How did we get there? It is easy to just blame the selfish Boomers, but they are not the only players here. We fell into the deficit trap because our federal government, shaped by two world wars and a Cold War, became unbalanced. Unchecked incentives and disincentives allowed people to pursue short-term personal gains at the cost of future national risk.

In some ways, the build-up of deficit spending habits is like becoming a chain-smoker.

You know it is bad, but it feels so good.

You try to quit, but you relapse.

Those who love you try to get you to quit, warning you about the how bad it is to you, but you feel fine. You feel better than fine. Everyone around you is smoking too, so why forgo the pleasure yourself?

What was once a pleasure, then becomes a habit. It gets expensive. You can’t buy this or that, because you’re two pack a day habit takes what pocket change you have.

It goes on and on, and then one day you really don’t feel all that great. That’s OK. You’ll just cut down on activity that stresses your heart and lungs…except if you’re out of smokes, then you’ll pry yourself off the couch to head to the corner store.

We are at that point now, and as I mentioned up-post, the USA is now past the deficit spending singularity where we are paying more on interest on the debt than we are on our national defense.

In FY 2024, net interest on the debt was $882 billion.

Spending on defense $874 billion.

Talk to any economic historian. They will tell you exactly where this leads a nation.

Eventually, no one will want to buy our debt, then we have to offer higher and higher interest rates to attract buyers.

Where will that money come from? China? Japan? The EU? They all have the same, or worse, problems.

Demographics cannot save us, just the opposite. All developed nations have cratering demographics. Old cohorts consume money, they don’t invest it.

For centuries, nations could prosper through population and economic growth. On a crowded planet approaching a population peak (already reached in many nations including China), that isn’t an option. Nationally and globally, the developed nations can’t grow out of this.

We are about to harvest the fruits of selfishness and a lack of stewardship. I have not seen one responsible person offer a long-term solution that doesn’t involve pain no one wants to experience...but experience it someone will.

Eventually, there will be a crisis that will cascade. I don’t know what the solution will be globally, but if I just focus on this nation and how we could fix it, the simpler options using our present, warped system seem now out of reach.

Just look at the “Big Beautiful Bill” that passed the house. Love it or hate it, it does nothing to fix the deficit or debt problem. However, this was the best out system could produce, Nothing else could pass, and that is the problem. Our federal government cannot fix itself.

Lucky for us, our Founders gave us a way to have one last chance to fix it before a crisis would create the conditions for destruction of our republic.

It is imperfect. It has risk. I am not a fan of it…but I don’t see another option at this stage.

I’ve been thinking about it for years, and with each passing year, it more seems the only viable option to stop the expanding rot. I believe that now there is only one solution: the States must save the Union from its federal government’s dysfunction.

Article V Convention of the States. We are just six states away from having one.

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two 04 thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”

I asked Grok to update the state of play.

To call an Article V Convention of States, 34 states (two-thirds of the 50 states) must pass resolutions applying for a convention. As of March 2025, 19 states have passed the Convention of States (COS) resolution, which calls for a convention to propose amendments that "limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, impose fiscal restraints, and place term limits on federal officials."

Therefore, 15 states are still needed to reach the required 34 to call the convention (34 - 19 = 15).

However, some sources indicate broader campaigns for an Article V convention (e.g., for a balanced budget amendment, term limits, or other issues), with claims that up to 28 states have passed various convention resolutions, leaving 6 states needed. This higher number includes resolutions with different focuses, and there is debate about whether all would count toward a single convention, as applications must be aggregated on similar topics. The COS-specific count (19 states) is more precise for their targeted resolution.

The later is where I am. Sooner more than later. Six more states to address:

• Balanced Budget Amendment

• Term limits

Just those two—things that were tried in the 1990s—would fix much of the existential problems with our federal government. If SCOTUS and the Senate had not … by one vote each … failed when the moment called on them 30 years ago, then it would have been a relatively easy fix. Now? Much harder.

You know the old orchardist’s phrase:

\The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Well, the best time to fix this was 30 years ago. The second best time is now.

How close did we get in the 1990s?

Term Limits: In 1995, the Supreme Court decided in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton in a 5-4 decision, one bote, that states cannot impose term limits on federal legislators because the Constitution sets the qualifications for members of Congress, and states lack the authority to add further restrictions. This effectively struck down state-level attempts to impose congressional term limits, killing the movement for state-imposed term limits at the federal level. Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion, emphasizing that allowing states to set their own qualifications would undermine the uniformity of federal elections.

Balanced Budget Amendment: The House passed versions of the amendment, but the Senate fell short of the required two-thirds majority in 1997 when the Senate vote was 66-34, one vote shy.

So, if we can avoid an open convention and only one to address Term Limits and a Balanced Budget Ammendment (though I would like more), I’ll take it.

Sooner more than later: good over perfect: now over never.

Of course the Article V autists have a longer list:

At an Article V Convention of States, delegates will have the opportunity to debate and pass amendments that could:

• Limit Supreme Court Justices to nine members.

• Prevent the addition of states without the affirmative consent of three quarters of the existing states.

• Require members of Congress to live under the same laws they pass for the rest of us.

• Impose term limits on members of Congress.

• Require a balanced federal budget.

• Impose limits on federal spending and/or taxation.

• Get the federal government out of our healthcare system.

• Get the federal government out of our education system.

• Stop unelected federal bureaucrats from imposing regulations.

• Set term limits for Supreme Court Justices.

• Set term limits for federal bureaucrats, ending the dominance of the “swamp.”

• Remove the authority of the federal government over state energy policy.

• Force the federal government to honor its commitment to return federal lands to the states.

No. We don’t have time or bandwidth for that mess, we have a republic to save.

Article V: Federal Term Limits and Balanced Budget. Let’s do this.

The House and the Senate are incapable of pushing through the barriers of faction and petty squabbles to the point they threaten the republic to insolvency. As we are a union of 50 sovereign States (in theory), then the States must save the republic they founded. It may be the last Constitutional option we have.

Our Founders gave us this tool for just this reason.