John Adams Institute Proposes Constitutional Amendment to Congress

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., May 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The John Adams Institute has submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to every member of the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

The proposal, which would become the 28^th Amendment if ratified, would roll back America's social aspect ratio to 10,000:1. 

In 1776, America's top household net worth likely approached 1,000x the national median. America's top household now exceeds 1,500,000x the median. According to Tim Ferguson, founder of the John Adams Institute, "This 1,500,000:1 social aspect ratio not only renders the republican model of government unsustainable, as we've witnessed with the recent political violence in our nation's capital, it is a flagrant violation of America's egalitarian founding principles." 

As John Adams wrote in 1765, "Property monopolized or in the Possession of a few is a Curse to Mankind. We should preserve not an Absolute Equality – this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme Poverty, and all others from extravagant Riches." Similarly, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1786: "An equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for sub-dividing property."

The proposed amendment heeds the Founding Fathers' warnings by rolling back America's social aspect ratio from 1,500,000:1 to 10,000:1. "This is all about avoiding George Washington's nightmare vision of political faction in his Farewell Address," said Ferguson. "But rather than rely upon usual interventionist measures such as heavy progressive taxation, regulation, and subsidies, this measure adopts a simple but elegant approach."  

To enforce the 10,000:1 social aspect ratio, the amendment would establish a "republic-saving ration" set at 10,000x the national median household net worth (approximately $1.2 billion/650 households). Going forward, the outcomes of the top households would be anchored to the median, rising and falling lockstep with the median.  Existing household fortunes would be grandfathered.

This approach assumes the market is incentivized to productively raise the median when top households gain or lose in mathematical proportion to the median. Furthermore, this market-generated distributive force creates no new business regulations, corporate taxes, or household taxes for any household beneath the $1.2 billion republic-saving ration.  Ferguson said: "This doctrine, named Rationism, is a middle-class market-oriented theory of political economy to restore an independent middle class and productive upward mobility, while nullifying the growing popular demand for socialism."

In addition, enforcement of the republic-saving ration should generate substantial direct and downstream tax revenues for state and federal governments, which could exceed $5 trillion in all. 

To incentivize Congress to initiate ratification, the proposed amendment allocates 50% of its direct revenues to Social Security, and the remainder in equal shares to each State. If Congress doesn't cooperate, then all direct revenues would be allocated in equal shares to the States, who could sidestep Congress via constitutional convention. 

To defend the proposed amendment, the John Adams Institute, based in North Carolina, has published a series of 40 essays entitled the Rationist. Written under the pseudonym Gracchus (reformer of the Roman Republic), the Rationist was inspired by the Federalist, the series of 85 essays written under the name Publius (a founder of the Roman Republic) by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to promote ratification of the original Constitution. 

Putting these efforts in historical context, Ferguson noted: "The Constitution has so far only guaranteed the form of a republic. It must now be empowered to preserve the substance of a republic."

Every member of Congress has been mailed a copy of Rationist No. 1. The entire series is available to the public free of charge at www.rationist.org.

SOURCE John Adams Institute