Obama Citizenship

MT State Rep Joins Other States in Introducing Bill Allowing State Transactions Based on Electronic Commodity Currency

By Phil

As a follow up to a recent posting on State-based monetary initiatives, Montana State Rep. Bob Wagner introduced HB639 (status page):

A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: “AN ACT ALLOWING THE STATE OF MONTANA AND POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS TO CONDUCT VARIOUS FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS IN GOLD, GOLD AND SILVER COIN, ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY, OR LEGAL TENDER OF THE UNITED STATES; ALLOWING CERTAIN PERSONS CONDUCTING VARIOUS FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS WITH THE STATE OR POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS TO CONDUCT THE TRANSACTIONS IN GOLD, GOLD AND SILVER COIN, ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY, OR LEGAL TENDER OF THE UNITED STATES; REQUIRING THAT CERTAIN FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND OTHER PERSONS INVOLVING CERTAIN TAXES, FEES, AND CHARGES ON CIGARETTES AND TOBACCO PRODUCTS BE CONDUCTED IN ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY; REQUIRING THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION TO ADOPT RULES FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF PAYMENT BY AND RECEIPT BY THE STATE AND POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS IN GOLD, GOLD AND SILVER COIN, OR ELECTRONIC GOLD CURRENCY …

Via WorldNetDaily.com:

Wagner joins legislators in several other states encouraging their respective governments to reconsider accepting gold as a form of payment. Indiana’s S.B. 453, Colorado’s H.B. 09-1206, Missouri’s H.B. 0561, Georgia’s H.B. 430 and Maryland’s H.J.R. 5 are among the gold currency bills introduced just this year in various legislatures.

Montana’s H.B. 639 has been referred to the Legislature’s State Administration Committee.

WorldNetDaily further explains…

A bill being considered in the Montana Legislature blasts the Federal Reserve’s role in America’s money policy and permits the state to conduct businessin gold and silver instead of the Fed’s legal tender notes.

Montana H.B. 639, sponsored by State Rep. Bob Wagner, R-Harrison, doesn’t require the state or citizens to conduct business in gold or silver, but it does require the state to calculate certain transactions in both the current legal tender system and in an electronic gold currency. It further mandates that the state must accept payments in gold or silver for various fees and purchases.

While Wagner was unavailable for comment, the bill’s language clearly alleges the nation’s current financial system, with its reliance on the private Federal Reserve system for money supply, is a danger to American freedom.

“The absence of gold and silver coin, whether in that form or in the form of an electronic gold currency, as media of exchange,” the bill states, “abridges, infringes on and interferes with the sovereignty and independence of this state ? and exposes this state and Montana citizens, inhabitants and businesses to chronic problems and potentially serious crises that may arise from the economic and political instability of the present domestic and international systems of coinage, currency, banking and credit.”

Further, the bill states, relying only on the depreciating legal tender issued by the Fed subjects citizens to “losses in purchasing power” inflicted by the government, a dilemma the bill says amounts to the “incremental confiscation” of property by government in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s protections for just compensation and due process.

The Fifth Amendment states, “No person shall be ? deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without justcompensation.”

Critics of the current financial system argue that using Federal Reserve notes as legal tender, rather than gold- or silver-backed currency, means the value of Americans’ money ? and thus their “property” ? is siphoned away by inflation, a process perpetuated by the government’s reliance on legal tender. Gold and silver, critics say, don’t lose their value on the whims of the Federal Reserve.

A current listing of State-based initiatives can be found here.

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on March 17, 2009 (boomark / email).