More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
MTM - Interview with Joe Wolverton..Why a Balanced Budget Amendment Won't Work.
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What if the fastest path to a balanced budget isn’t a new amendment at all, but simply enforcing the one we already have? We sit down with constitutional lawyer Joe Wolverton to dismantle the popular case for a new constitutional convention and to map out a realistic, lawful way to rein in Washington’s spending. Joe traces his journey from a military family to constitutional scholarship and lays out a plain reading of the Constitution: enumerated powers are few, and everything else belongs to the states and the people. If federal actors stayed within those limits, the budget would contract dramatically—no new text required.
We go deep on the balanced budget amendment pitch and why it misunderstands incentives. If leaders ignore the document they swore to support, adding another line won’t cultivate virtue or restraint. Using a clear contract analogy, Joe explains the founders’ design: the states are the principals, the federal government is the agent, and acts beyond enumerated powers are void in principle and should be refused in practice. That refusal is not rebellion; it is the remedy in Federalist 46, where states decline to cooperate with unconstitutional programs, starving them of the local machinery they need to function.
You’ll hear sharp examples of federal overreach—sprawling agencies, expansive taxation, and costly global commitments—with a sober reminder that even well-intended amendments can backfire. The cautionary lessons of the 16th and 17th Amendments loom large, and the risk of a runaway convention is real once the door is opened. Instead of rolling the dice on a rewrite, we make the case for an attainable plan: educate state legislators on their oath, assert reserved powers, and reestablish constitutional boundaries. That’s how to make America states again—and how to restore fiscal sanity without gambling the founding charter.
If this conversation challenged your assumptions or gave you a new playbook, follow the show, share it with a friend who cares about constitutional limits, and leave a review with the one action you’ll take in your state.
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Welcome And Guest Background
SPEAKER_01This is more than enough for the illness with the flag, our culture, and our host of author and physician, Dr. Robert Jackson. And it's Mr. Carlotta and Dr. Annabella. So that's enough because the doctor is dead.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, again, this week I'm privileged to have Joe Wolverton, one of my good friends, on with us online. He's all the way from Tennessee. And uh Joe, welcome to More Than Medicine.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much, Doc. It's a privilege and a pleasure to be with you as always.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Now again, I want you to introduce yourself so my some of my listeners aren't here every week and let them know who you are and what you do, and who's your mama, who's your daddy. You know how that goes.
SPEAKER_02I tell people, you know, they I live here on the Mississippi, and of course, they you know, say your song, Your Your Daddy's Rich and Your Mama's Good Looking. I said, Well, half of that's true. I'll leave it up, I'll leave it up to y'all to decide which half is true. But no, I am I uh you you uh the truth of the matter is I'm the first generation of my family on either side not to be bored on the cotton field doc.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02Um my dad went to Vietnam and and uh as bizarre as it is to say, uh Vietnam you know saved me, saved my family. Um so when he got back, he decided to you know re-enlist in the army, and that gave me a life that I never would have had otherwise. And uh so I ended up you know going to college and uh uh uh you know getting a a law degree eventually here in Memphis, and uh this is my hometown, is Memphis. We've lived here for well, I can tell the story. My my grand my what was it, fourth grade grandpa voted for David Crockett in the congressional race.
SPEAKER_03How about that?
SPEAKER_02We we lived here for a couple hundred years now. Man, oh man. But I was raised, I was raised overseas because of my dad's job took us overseas, but I yeah, I got a law degree here in the University of Memphis Law School, and I'm a constitutional lawyer, and and my uh just been my calling since I was little. I mean, you can look in uh, you know, my earliest days, there were evidence that I was interested in all of this about the constitution. I was a little kid in ordering these cards, these collectible cards about the founding fathers.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02So I've been called that since birth, and and my parents encouraged it and everything, and then I got uh just you know recognized by the New American, and they had me write for them the magazine of the John Birch Society. And eventually, just to make a long story short, they they hired me as their inaugural constitutional law scholar. Wow, and see what that means. An honor beyond, you know, inexpressibly honored.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02And uh I uh what that basically means is anything that comes out of the John Burr Society, if it touches and concerns the Constitution, it goes through me first.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02To make sure that we are consistent. Now we don't have to agree with each other, yeah. Right? We we you know, scholars and and and good people disagree with each other on on things, but we have to be consistent. That's what we want. We if you know, we don't want people wondering which side of the of the matter we come down on. We want to be clear and consistent with our constitutional uh constitutional stances.
SPEAKER_03Gotcha.
SPEAKER_02And so I'm I'm tasked with doing that, and then I wear several hats there. I'm also the president of uh Western Islands, which is the publishing arm of the John Burr Society, and I'm also the director of legal affairs for the John Burr Society. You wear a lot of hats. I do I I certainly do, but the Constitutional Law Scholar is my favorite hat.
SPEAKER_03Wow, that means you got a really big head.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I do, but that's that's neither here nor there. Doesn't become you to tell me.
Defining The Scholar’s Role And Mission
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh. I hear you. All right. Well, listen, what I want us to do today, Joe Wolverton, is talk about some more about um the Constitutional Convention. Now, if my listeners aren't familiar, they need to go back and listen to last week's podcast about the Constitutional Convention and why that's not a good idea. And I want to play devil's advocate this week, even though my wife tells me sometimes that I'm full of the devil. And um and so but but here's the thing. Uh when we talk about a constitutional convention, well, many people often say to me, Joe, that we need a constitutional convention so that we can achieve a balanced budget, or we need it so that we can achieve term limits. And so and I I hear that so often, I want to pose those two questions to you. And I want to hear your response to those two issues that are raised so very often whenever a constitutional convention is is being discussed. So uh as Bill O'Reilly used to always say, what say you?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, I would say first of all that yes, I agree there are well-meaning people that are that support this, and I think that's mostly because they've been misled by really slick talking snake oil salesmen.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
Framing The Convention Debate
SPEAKER_02Who present themselves as as everyman, as just, you know, just Joe Six Pack. And they're not. They're they're either millionaire lawyers or they're billionaire oil men behind the scenes. And which you never hear of. You go to their website, you don't see mention of the deep pockets that fund them. You hear them claim that they're supported by you know ten and fifteen dollar contributions by you know Joe and Jane, uh, everyman, and that's just not true. But talking about specifically about the balance budget, now the federal government, as it is in the constitution we have today, it lacks any authority for its current spending and tax collection practices, Doc. Despite the the efforts to convene a convention proposing amendment, they cannot argue against the fact that the spending that the federal government does right now is over 80% of it unconstitutional.
SPEAKER_03What do you mean by that?
Balanced Budget Amendment Claims
Limited Powers And The Tenth Amendment
Income Tax And Direct Election Shifts
SPEAKER_02Well, that they don't the constitution doesn't grant the authority to the federal government to tax and spend money the way they're doing it right now. That we don't need to fix the constitution, we need to follow it. Right? If the Congress and the President and the courts stayed within their constitutional authority, the boundaries of their constitutional authority, we would instantly overnight reduce the federal budget by over 80%, because that's how much of it they do without the authority to do it, without the constitutional authority to do it. You gotta remember this, Doc. The Constitution is not a list of the things the federal government cannot do. It is a very specific, a very limited list of specific powers that are granted to the federal government. And any power, as the Tenth Amendment says, any power that isn't granted in the Constitution to the federal government, that power remains with the states and the people. Right? That's correct. So you don't look at the Constitution, people need to stop looking at it for prohibitions. That's not what it is. It's a list of very specific powers, and only those powers can be exercised by the federal government. And the Tenth Amendment reinforces that by saying if a power isn't granted in the Constitution to the federal government, then that power remains with the states and the people. You can just look at your constitution, you know, you pull out your public constitution, what can they what can they tax? Well, they specifically are forbidden from taxing income, yet we have and this is one of the things that this is one of the things that the Constitutional Convention people hate, is the fact that they claim, well, the states would never pass any crazy uh constitutional amendment that did something crazy. And I'm like, have you heard of the 16th Amendment? Have you heard of the 17th Amendment? The 16th Amendment granted the government the the authority, supposedly, the authority to tax income. When specifically in the Constitution it says you cannot do that. You cannot tax income. But they passed the 16th Amendment. That and behold, the 17th Amendment was designed to keep the states involved in Congress by letting the state legislatures uh elect the senators. Well, the 17th Amendment, it's got ratified, it makes it where the people elect the senators. So the states are blocked out again, right? Trying to neuter the states. And so the federal government has very limited power to tax, but they tax, I mean, they tax your income, they tax, think about the things they tax. They tax if you are a business owner, they tax everything you buy. Then you pay your employees, but you have to pay unemployment, which is not constitutional, you have to pay Medicare, you have to pay all this stuff, Social Security, you pay all this stuff, your employee is then taxed on that income. The employee then goes, buys, I don't know, loaf of bread. He's taxed on that purchase. The purpose, the people who made the bread are taxed on that. The store where he bought it is taxed on it by whomever they bought it from, and from the federal government. The federal government then taxes the uh, and then you have to, if you do anything with that bread, if you make sandwiches and you sell them, then you're taxed on that. All of that is unconstitutional. But it's beyond that. It's it's it's the fact that the the real problem comes. The real problem comes when they um spend money on that which they are not authorized to spend. We are not authorized to spend and create a government that's in the trillions of dollars in debt. They they have created, you know, this military-industrial complex that is far beyond anything constitutional, right? We're supposed to be a defensive army, and we have our we're not defensive army at all. We have bases everywhere. We nowhere in the constitution is the government permitted to establish overseas bases. Nowhere. Now, I'm not saying that that's not necessarily something that could be done, but I'm saying it's not constitutional. The Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Health and Human Services. Think of all think of all these departments that are completely nothing about that is mentioned in the Constitution, and yet we do it. We create these things. Well, where does this money come from? It comes from printing money that has no backing, right? And the people are taxed, and then they create fake money, they then sell bonds that we can never make good on to foreign governments, so we ended up end up owing trillions in or billions in debt to China, to Brazil, to everywhere. We're upside down everywhere to pay for all of these things that aren't constitutional. Like I said, all these federal alphabet agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Bureau of Economic, what is it, EPA, all of these things are completely unconstitutional. Find, you have to go to the constitution, Doc. And if it's not in there, the federal government can't do it. So instantly, we would just take a red marker and go through all of these departments. They are not constitutional. And can you imagine the boon it would be to our budget to be able to go in and say, that department's gone, that department's gone, that department's gone, that department's gone. And all the billions of dollars we spend to uphold this gargantuan government that is so far from what the founders intended that they wouldn't recognize it if they came here.
SPEAKER_03I understand. I do. I understand.
SPEAKER_02We've got to keep this federal beast locked inside its constitutional cage.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
Unconstitutional Spending And Agencies
SPEAKER_02We have got to do that, or it will consume us. It will consume us. And it's doing that now. It's like Patrick Henry warned. He said this government is a tyranny and embryo and will one day consume all that is dear to humanity. And we're seeing that. We're seeing that played out. And when you call for a you know, a balanced budget, what are you saying? Are you saying that if we put another line in the Constitution, suddenly the federal government is going to be faithful to the Constitution when they haven't been for all these years and it's already unconstitutional what they're doing? How is that possible that if we add a couple of lines to the Constitution, suddenly these corrupt politicians that have spent us into the, you know, into uh debt overwhelming uh we cannot pay it back. If we add a couple of lines to the Constitution, suddenly those people are gonna be faithful to their oaths of office? No. No, they're not. No, no, just like I I said to you before last time, if you add a few lines to the marriage vow, it's not gonna keep an adulterer from committing adultery. Because it's in his heart and he's gonna do it, regardless of what he says at that altar, regardless of what words are in the vow, and corrupt politicians are likewise. They are going to tax and spend as much as they can get away with, despite the fact that every one of them put their hand on the Bible and swore to God to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. They despite that, so you're telling me that despite the fact that they call down the Almighty as a witness to their corruption, that if we add a few lines saying, but you have to keep a balanced budget, that suddenly they're gonna do it. No, they're not gonna do it, and this is just a way for these people that support a convention to get that convention called by preying on P R E Y, by preying on the fears of regular folks who like me, like you, who feel the pinch of taxation. That's right. Right? We feel that we we know what it's like to have to have a budget because we can't just go out and spend like we like. Right? I understand. The federal government doesn't know that restriction because we've never enforced it on them, and that's why I say to make America great again, we have to make America states again. We have to get to our state legislatures and say, fellas, y'all gotta stand up to this federal government, and you've got to refuse to cooperate with any unconstitutional act of the federal government. James Madison specifically said in Federalist 46, you should refuse to cooperate with any unconstitutional act of the federal government.
SPEAKER_03Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's the thing we're missing, is that we are not going to get a balanced budget, Doc. We are not gonna get it. Not through a balanced budget amendment. Because adding a few lines to the Constitution is not gonna turn a corrupt politician into a virtuous one. Yeah, it's not gonna happen because that exists in your heart and in your mind. It doesn't exist anywhere else. You can't coerce someone into being virtuous, right? No, you can't and so they will continue to find loopholes and tax and spend their way in right?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I'm just thinking, you know, you can't make people be virtuous, and if they're not willing to be virtuous, you have to put them in prison. Some of our legislators need to go to prison because they refuse to be virtuous.
The Cost Of Endless Federal Expansion
SPEAKER_02It would it would be, you know, it's like it's like Trent and Gordon said, it's it's why don't we see more politicians hanged? That's right. You know, why don't it Charles Furchin said that? Jeez, to think of you know, someone in the church, Charles Ferguson said. But anyway, think of it this way the Constitution, and this is the way I try to explain it to people, is a contract, right? That's what the founders called it, a compact, a contract. It is a con an employment contract. The federal government's powers are clearly defined and limited, like you would with any job description. If you went like me, when I got hired by the John Burr Society as their constitutional law scholar, they had a job description laid out for me. And I agreed, you know, if I agreed to these terms and I signed it and I everything, I got employed. But I can't act outside of this job description, or else that act is void, right? The John Burr Society would not if I went and gave a speech, uh heaven knows this would never happen, but if I went and gave a pro-abortion speech, yeah, I would be f I would be I'd be fired. Immediately. Right? Immediately fired because they do not, we that is not our corporate belief. We we are exactly the polar opposite of that belief, and I'd be fired instantly because I acted outside the scope of my authority. Well, that's exactly what the Constitution is, Doug. It is a, you can read it over and over and over again in the words of the founders. It is a contract. It is a contract that the states created an agent called the federal government and laid out specific powers. And like an employee that oversteps the authority, the federal government often exceeds its constitutional powers. You're right. And you've got state legislators that are supposed to be there that confine the employee, that is to say, the federal government, they're supposed to confine that employee within its scope of authority, but they don't. They failed us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They play this crucial role, Doc. Yeah. A crucial, a critical role in restricting the federal government's actions to ensure this adherence to the Constitution.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But they don't do it, and they don't do it because we don't make them do it because we become convinced that the answer is in Washington. The answer's not in Washington. In the state. Right? It's in it's in the state house. That's right. You have to go there, and you can have influence over your state legislature. Influence that you will never have over your federal senator or your federal rep. But you can go and have influence in your state legislature, and you can literally see that evidence played out. And to think that suddenly, somehow, a few lines in the Constitution, it's ridiculous, Doc. It's silly. If you think about it, if you step, take a step back, take a pace away from the fighting and think about it, you know that it won't work. Yeah. That not a new amendment saying, yeah, you've been doing this for you know over a hundred years, but now we want you to stop. They're not suddenly going to stop doing that.
SPEAKER_03No, they're not.
SPEAKER_02They're not. They have gone unchecked for so long that they will find a way. And so what we need to do is elect state legislators who are committed to confining the federal government within the boundaries of its constitutional authority. Strict adherence to the constitutional contract is what we need, Doc.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02This is what we need.
SPEAKER_03But see, the thing is, we have to educate our legislators, our state legislators, to the constitutional obligation. Oh my.
SPEAKER_02I mean, they take an oath in Article Six of the Constitution as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they do.
SPEAKER_02They take an oath. Yes, sir. Article six requires all state officers to take an oath in the Constitution.
Virtue, Oaths, And Political Incentives
SPEAKER_03I mean, I talked to legislators in our state. And there you start bringing up the Constitution and they start staring at you like they're like a calf looking at a new gate. They cock their head sideways and stare at you like a coon in a tree.
SPEAKER_02Well that's uh yes, that's on us. We what obligation do we owe to the to the freedom and the liberty that God has granted us? What obligation I think you know spending time educating our state legislators is not too much to ask to to to secure the liberty that God granted us. You know, we're so blessed, and and he, you know, with every drop of blood, he secured that liberty. And so we need to remember that and work work hard to can you know to educate, as you say. You rightly say, educate these state legislators, that they are responsible for keeping the federal government within the boundaries of its constitutional authority. They are the the you know, the principals, the bosses, the employer, and the federal government is the employee. You can, like I say, read the federal papers, you'll notice they call it a contract or a compact over and over and over again. Yeah. Because that's what they envisioned it. The states got together, created an agent, an employee, the federal government, and just like any employee, gave it a job description. Yep. And if the employee acts outside of the that his authority, that act is null and void and of no legal effect. And the the employer has complete authority to refuse to to uh enforce, refuse to acknowledge the rogue act of its employee. That's simple contract law, Doc, that we learned first year of law school. Yep, yep. Right? You have a principal and an agent, an employer and employee. The employer lists the the job description, employee agrees or doesn't agree. If the employee agrees, then he is bound by the limits of that uh document that created his job. And if he goes rogue, the employer has no obligation to ratify that act, that rogue act. And this is what we need to do now. And I'm telling you, this is the warning I give to your listeners, Doug. They the people that are sponsoring this, they know that this will have no effect on balancing the budget. It simply is a way to prey on the fears of common people who feel the pinch of taxation. Yeah. It is a way to prey on their fears to get them to encourage their legislators to vote for this convention because they know that once they get that convention started, there's no stopping it.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
The Constitution As A Contract
SPEAKER_02They don't care about a balanced budget, they don't care about your rights, they care about getting into the Constitution and tinkering it with it and turning it into something you won't recognize when they're done.
SPEAKER_03You're right.
SPEAKER_02So please don't fall for the snake oil. Please don't fall for it.
SPEAKER_03All right, our time's running out. Um, any last comments about either constitutional convention or the balanced budget?
SPEAKER_02Well, I would just say, I mean, we're going to talk about term limits as well.
SPEAKER_03Well, let's wait, let's do that again another day. We'll devote a whole podcast just to that.
State Duty To Refuse Unlawful Acts
SPEAKER_02Oh, yes, sir. All right. Well, what I would say is, first of all, remember that the Cons read the Constitution first. Read it. Read it and recognize what it is. It's a contract wherein the states created an employee called the federal government, that we call the federal government, they called it the general government, the federal government, that the con the constitution is a contract laying out the specific limited powers granted to the federal government. If the federal government is not given a power in the constitution, then that power remains with the states and the people. That today, over 80% of the federal budget is unconstitutional. Think of all these alphabet agencies that exist that should not exist under the constitution, right? That we could cut that out and the budget would be balanced overnight. And we all we have to do is have state legislators. You have to turn your attention to your state legislature, turn your attention to those men and educate them about the constitution, educate them about educate them about their the oath they're required to swear under Article 6 of the Constitution. Tell them that it's their obligation to prevent the federal government from overstepping its constitutional authority. And if they do that, then we can balance the budget without opening the Constitution to the tinkering of corrupt politicians who would no doubt be sitting at that convention, mouths watering at the thought of being able to change the government into something we would not recognize. So realize that that federal government is an employee, the states are the employer, and get out and get with your state reps, your state senators, educate them, tell them what they're supposed to be doing. And if we can have this in just a few states, you'll see the domino effect, right? You'll see the domino effect. If one state can start doing it, other states around will see the prosperity that comes from this refusal to uh cooperate with unconstitutional acts of the federal government, that more states will want to do it. But you got to get in your constitution, you gotta read it, and you gotta recognize that a a few a few extra words in the marriage vow ain't gonna turn an adulterer into someone faithful.
SPEAKER_03You're right.
SPEAKER_02Right?
SPEAKER_03You're right.
SPEAKER_02If it exists in your heart, it exists in your heart. And the same is true with corrupt politicians. Every guys, this is the thing I preach most, I should say teach, I shouldn't say preach what teach most. Is every one of those men in Washington, every one of them swore an oath to God with their hand on the Bible that they would preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. And there are only a few on Capitol Hill that are faithful to that oath. Now, the Constitution doesn't require swearing to God. You'll notice in the Constitution that's not required. George Washington did it, and so all presidents following him have followed his president, but that's not required. Because the Founding Fathers knew that if you swore, and it says in there, swear or affirm, if you swear, then they knew you're bringing God down as a witness to your corruption. So please, brothers and sisters, remember that every one of these men swore an oath, and every one of them invoked the Almighty as a witness to their perfidy. We've got to hold them accountable for that because if we don't, God will.
SPEAKER_03All right, Joe, I appreciate it, man. This is very good. I mean, it's it's a lot to swallow, and it gives me a lot of thoughts, too.
SPEAKER_02Things I need to be doing. I would tell all your listeners if you buy my book, Article 5 for the citizen and citizen legislator, it's about 90 pages and it's chopped full of all the information, all the historical stuff, and it's cheap, Doc. I don't know how much it is, five bucks, something like that. And you go on uh Western Islands Publishing.com, Western Islandspublishing.com, buy that little book, Article 5 for the Citizen and the Citizen Legislature, and you will instantly be a convert. If you've if you've been if you've been convinced to to uh support the Convention of States, you'll be instantly converted back to the good side.
Why A Convention Risks A Runaway
SPEAKER_03I hear you. All right. You're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson. My guest today is constitutional lawyer Joe Wolverton. I really appreciate his input. We'll be back again next week. I'm gonna ask him to talk to us about term limits next week, and then the week after that, we're gonna do a message on nullification, how the states have power, the power of nullification, and the practical implications of that. Thank you, Joe. You're a good friend, a good expert, and I appreciate your input. Till next week. Remember this: Jesus loves you, your doctor loves you, and may the Lord bless you real good.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening to this edition of Morthern Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry or the Scheduler Speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, Instagram, or webpage at JacksonFamily Medistry.com. Also, don't forget to check out JacksonJacks on Instagram.
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