Congress has spent $36 trillion of your money without ever balancing a single budget.
Now one governor is pushing the two constitutional changes that would force them to stop.
What DeSantis is demanding would make career politicians' biggest feeding trough illegal – and they know it.
The Number Congress Prays You Never See
The federal government has run a deficit every single year since 2001.
Every single year.
This fiscal year alone, Washington spent $950 billion more than it took in.
The national debt now exceeds $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.
But Ron DeSantis delivered the sharpest line of this entire push standing before Kentucky lawmakers in February.
"We now spend more on interest on our national debt – just to service the debt – than we do on national defense," he told them.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2025201714891002009?s=20
Read that again.
Interest payments. Bigger than the entire military budget.
And those numbers climb higher every year as old bonds get refinanced at current rates.
Why This Has Died Every Time Before
Term limits and a balanced budget requirement aren't new ideas.
Newt Gingrich put term limits in the Contract With America in 1994.
Republicans rode that promise to their first House majority in forty years.
Then they won. And the term limits proposal died quietly in committee.
This is the pattern every reformer eventually hits – the people you need to change the system are the ones who benefit most from keeping it broken.
That's exactly why DeSantis is going around Congress entirely.
The Constitution gives states a second path to amendments – two-thirds of state legislatures can call a convention to propose changes directly, bypassing Washington completely.
Over twenty states have already passed resolutions supporting both measures.
DeSantis believes the number doesn't even need to hit the full thirty-eight required for ratification to force action.
"Well, what would happen if you got to 31, 32 states?" he asked a Delray Beach crowd in December. "I mean, Congress would end up passing it."
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2056698003839496495?s=20
He's right about the math.
The moment enough states signal they're serious, Congress faces a choice – pass the amendment themselves and at least control the language, or watch it happen without them.
What These Two Changes Would Actually Do
Balanced budget requirements already exist in forty-nine of fifty state constitutions.
States figure out how to fund priorities without writing checks they can't cover.
Washington has never been forced to make those choices – because there are no consequences for the people doing the spending.
Term limits attack the incentive structure directly.
A congressman serving his eighth term in a safe district has spent sixteen years building relationships with lobbyists, identifying which budget lines can be quietly inflated, and positioning his staffers for agency jobs when they leave.
That's not public service.
That's a career.
Twelve years and you're gone – suddenly every vote has to be about what's actually good for the country.
The 1995 Supreme Court ruling in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton already settled how this gets done.
Congressional limits require a constitutional amendment – full stop.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2056689213974962544?s=20
States can't do it unilaterally.
But they can create the pressure that makes Congress act.
Over a dozen states have now passed resolutions calling for a formal term limits convention in both legislative chambers – not just one house, both.
The machinery is in motion.
And the people trying to stop it are the same ones who have been spending your money since 2001 without once balancing the books.
America is paying more to service its own debt than to defend itself.
The only question is whether enough governors have the spine to make Washington face that number.
Sources:
- Ron DeSantis, remarks before Kentucky State Legislature, February 2026.
- "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Calls for New National Amendment," ClickOrlando, December 13, 2025.
- U.S. Treasury, FiscalData.treasury.gov, "National Deficit," May 2026.
- U.S. Term Limits, "Convention Progress," TermLimits.com, accessed May 2026.
- Florida House of Representatives, HCR 693, 2024 Session.
