The Stop Stealing From Children Amendment

A Proposed Constitutional Amendment From the Independence Party

The following statement was approved by the Independence Party membership for inclusion in its platform, which we are constructing one statement at a time. Although this statement does not specifically reference the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” the latest debt bomb just signed into law by President Trump, it addresses the ongoing problem of Congress’s addiction to deficit spending. Although we recognize that it takes colossal effort to get a constitutional amendment passed, it is our hope that this proposal, or at least the concept expressed in it, will start generating discussion among voters — and state legislators — in our state and other states, who are as alarmed as we are by Congress’s apparent inability to exercise anything resembling fiscal restraint. We anticipate adopting other statements on the budget/national debt crisis in the near future.

The Stop Stealing From Children Amendment

Introduction

[Please note that this Introduction is not part of the proposed Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the text of which appears below.]

The Stop Stealing From Children Amendment tackles the economic crisis which we all face, and in particular our children, from runaway deficit spending and a mounting debt crisis. Continuous decades of experience show plainly that, left to themselves, our elected representatives in Congress have been collectively unable to restrain themselves from going deeper and deeper into debt to fund all the government programs and services that they believe are necessary or desirable.

In fiscal year 2024, the federal government spent $6.9 trillion. Of that $6.9 trillion, only about $4.9 trillion was financed by federal revenues. The remaining amount was financed by borrowing. This has been part of an ongoing pattern, regardless of whether the Democratic or Republican parties control the White House or Congress (which is one reason why we so badly need representatives in Congress who are independent of the duopoly parties). Our federal government has been deficit spending in every fiscal year since 2001, when there was a very rare, and small, surplus.

Over the past 100 years, the U.S. federal debt has increased from $395 billion in 1924 to $35.46 trillion in 2024. Even worse, the current national debt is currently 123 percent of the value of the nation’s gross domestic product, an unsustainable level that portends future fiscal disaster if we do not take dramatic steps to rein in reckless federal deficit spending.

This has to stop. Endless, freewheeling borrowing leaves our children with an unpayable bar tab and lets us off the hook scot-free. Or so we think. For if our children do mean something to us, and if their children do likewise, then we ourselves will suffer, for harm to them becomes harm to us as well.

It appears that only a constitutional amendment will impose the restraint needed to keep us from borrowing against our children's future again and again. For this reason, the Independence Party supports ratification of a proposed Stop Stealing From Children Amendment, as follows:

Text of Proposed Amendment

Section One. Each year Congress shall assign by law a rank of priorities for each item in the budget of the United States. Each such item shall be fully funded on a monthly basis with funds which have not been borrowed, starting with the item which has the highest priority, and continuing according to each item's priority ranking. For purposes of this amendment, a budget “item” refers to the approved expenditures allocated to: a) Congress itself, and each agency under the direct supervision of Congress; b) the judicial branch as a whole; and c) each line item for each sub-department, sub-agency, program, fund, grant or similar designation for each department of the executive branch, as so designated by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Where Congress or this amendment does not assign a rank of priority for an item, the item shall be deemed to have been given by Congress a priority corresponding to the order in which it was first created as compared to all other items in the budget.

Funds which have been appropriated for a particular item but which have not yet been spent shall not be available for another item unless the spending priorities for such items have been changed by law.

Each vote in Congress arising from the operation of this amendment shall be recorded.

Section Two. The funding of the judicial branch, as required by Article III of this Constitution, shall have priority over all other items in the budget of the United States.

The funding of Social Security and Medicare payments, and the funding for pensions for employees of the United States, shall have the next level of priority. Said payments, including cost of living allowances, shall be funded in accordance with the method of determining such payments at least to the extent that they shall have been provided for in the fiscal year in which this amendment was ratified.

Section Three. Where a fiscal year begins with the United States having a debt, at least five percent of that fiscal year's budget shall be appropriated toward paying down that debt. Said payments shall have a budget priority exceeded only by the items referred to in Section Two above.

Section Four. Except as otherwise provided for herein, no funding may be based on borrowed money except upon approval by a two-thirds vote in each chamber of Congress; provided, that if the funding with borrowed money shall have been vetoed, the funding with borrowed money may be restored only upon approval by a three-fourths vote in each chamber of Congress. The borrowing permitted by this paragraph may not be repeated until there shall have been a new general election for Congress.

Congress may account for seasonal variations in the monthly receipt of revenue by borrowing money during times of a seasonal decrease in revenue. Such borrowed funds shall be repaid upon the receipt of a seasonal increase in revenue to the extent that said revenue does exceed the seasonally adjusted average.

Section Five. In the fiscal year following a year in which there has been funding with borrowed funds, the complete repayment of such borrowed funds shall have a higher priority than any other funding, except as provided for in Section Two above. The repayment shall be in equal monthly payments throughout the remainder of the fiscal year unless Congress shall provide by law for sooner repayment.

Section Six. Where the receipt of payments into the Treasury of the United States, together with the history of such receipts, cannot support the conclusion that the approved expenditures of the budget as a whole can be fully funded for the duration of the fiscal year, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, with 30 days’ notice, cease all outlays for budgeted items in reverse order of priority, beginning with the lowest ranked item, and continuing to the next lowest ranked items, until the Secretary determines that the projected receipts shall be sufficient to fully fund the outlays of the remaining items in the budget.

Such actions by the Secretary shall be predicated by the publishing of a finding, in a manner Congress shall provide for by law, to the effect that this section applies.

Except as otherwise provided by law, any partial-year funding which is not disbursed by virtue of a decision to discontinue funding shall remain in the Treasury.

Section Seven. Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.

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Adopted by the Membership on May 27, 2025.