Former US Senator Tom Coburn, Others Promote Convention of States Under Article Five of US Constitution

Former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)
[From article]
Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, two-thirds of the state legislatures can call a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution that limit the scope and jurisdiction of the federal government.
Alaska, Florida and Georgia passed Article V resolutions last year. Two dozen other states are also considering that option.
On January 6, the House of Representatives passed House Rule XII, Section 3(c) ordering the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to keep track of all Article V Convention applications and have the Clerk’s Office make them “publicly available in electronic form, organized by State of origin and year of receipt.”
[. . .]



I identified $400 billion of waste, fraud and duplication, but none of it was eliminated. Nobody had the courage to eliminate it. And that’s why we need a Convention of the States: to diminish the power of the federal government.
“The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] and OMB [Office of Management and Budget] are not using real numbers and are not telling Americans the truth,” Coburn continued.
“We have $144 trillion in unfunded liabilities and we’re $18 trillion in debt. When you divide that by the population, it’s more than $500,000 for each American, which nobody has,” he said.
[. . .]
“I’ve been in Washington for 16 years, when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, when Democrats controlled Congress, and every combination in between. There is no difference. There’s no difference,” he emphasized.
No matter which party was in charge, the federal government continued to grow and Americans’ liberty continued to diminish, he pointed out.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/coburn-convention-states-needed-because-washington-will-never-fix

Coburn: Convention of States Needed Because Washington Will Never Fix Itself
March 5, 2015 - 12:49 PM
By Barbara Hollingsworth