This week sees the debut of Cato Unbound, a new website devoted to promoting big-picture intellectual discussions led by a provocative article from a leading thinker and thoughtful responses from other leading thinkers.

In their inaugural discussion, Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan, founder of the public choice school of economics, offers a proposal on new amendments to the Constitution. Responding to Buchanan's proposal will be Akhil Reed Amar, Judge Alex Kozinski, and William A. Niskanen.

Buchanan fires the opening salvo by proposing three new amendments: fiscal responsibility, political nondiscrimination, and natural liberty:

Fiscal irresponsibility stares us in the face and cries out for correction. The near-total disregard for any pretense of generality in the distribution of apparent governmental largesse, along with the increasing manipulation of the tax structure, can only be turned around by constitutional prohibition of discrimination. Existing rules, as interpreted, have not been successful in guaranteeing the natural liberty of citizens to engage in voluntary exchange, both among themselves within the political jurisdiction and with others beyond national boundaries.

Buchanan himself acknowledges that his third proposed amendment, natural liberty, is a radical proposal:

The third proposal, treated here, is dramatically different because its endorsement, even as principle, requires rethinking the two-century presumption that governmental action is preferred to that generated through markets. The mind-set that elevates collective action to its idealized image while ignoring the reality of its operation must be exorcised, and especially as this mind-set has come to dominate legal interpretation after the usurpation of constitutional limits in the Roosevelt era.

Buchanan also acknowledges that although his proposed amendments are designed generally to control the size and influence of government, they are not foolproof:

As already noted, the three basic changes would not, in themselves, insure against a governmental sector that is Leviathan-like in size. The proposals are procedural rather than substantive. They would not prevent constituencies, through ordinary democratic processes, from choosing to levy general tax rates sufficient to finance a massive budget that embodies generalized benefits. Perhaps the culture of dependence is so entrenched in public attitudes that a large and cumbersome nonproductive welfare state remains in prospect. The test should be carried out, nonetheless, before proposals are advanced that reflect abandonment of the fundamental democratic faith.

Akhil Reed Amar's response, a more technical, legal rebuttal that raises a lot of questions but answers few, has already been posted.

I myself am most looking forward to Judge Kozinski's contribution to the discussion.