Amending the Constitution?

House Republican leader John Boehner signaled his approval to amending the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution to prevent children of illegal immigrants from automatically being considered US citizens just because they were born on American soil.

"Changing the Constitution's guarantee of U.S. citizenship for anyone born in the United States is "worth considering" if it helps reduce illegal immigration, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives said Sunday.

"It's a serious problem that affects our country, and in certain parts of our country clearly our schools, our hospitals are being overrun by illegal immigrants. A lot of them came here just so their children could become U.S. citizens.

They should do it the legal way," House Minority Leader John Boehner told NBC's "Meet the Press."

I have no issues with this proposed change. Although in favor lawful immigration in general, it seems that allowing illegal immigrants to "bootstrap" their way to citizenship by illegally entering the country and delivering a baby is a loophole that should be shut down. However, since many illegal immigrants come to the country mainly for free (to them, at least) taxpayer-financed social services, tightening up the requirements of who is actually eligible for government services should actually fix that problem without the need for a Constitutional amendment.

However, if Congress is going to go to the trouble of amending the Constitution (which is an exceedingly difficult process, set out in Article V of the Constitution, and generally requires a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress, and passage by 3/4 of state legislatures) then let's amend some other provisions as well.

For example, amending the 16th Amendment to prevent the federal government from claiming higher than a determined amount of income (20%?) in the form of taxes should also be considered.

The federal government currently claims upwards of 35% of earned income. In prior years, the maximum tax rate has been as high as 90% of income.

There's simply no reason that the federal government is vested with this much power and is able to seize such a high percentage of citizens' private property. The amount of money the government can forcibly extract from its citizens should be strictly limited by the Constitution, and shouldn't be able to be arbitrarily changed from year-to-year depending on the whims of the electorate, most of whom likely aren't subject to these rates anyway.