WASHINGTON — The U.S. national debt crossed $40 trillion this week, and the congressman who runs the House's budget process wants the country to sit with a smaller number instead: $6 billion. That's what House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington says the federal government borrows on an average day, and by his account, more than half of that daily sum goes toward interest on money Washington has already spent.
Arrington, a Lubbock Republican, is using the milestone to relaunch a long-shot campaign: asking state legislatures to force a constitutional convention under Article V, a path the Constitution allows but the country has never actually used to amend itself. In his statement, Arrington argued lawmakers are leaving the next generation to cover bills "we are unwilling to pay for ourselves."
