Tenth Amendment Center: Alabama Bill Would Help Encourage Use of Gold and Silver as Money

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Oct. 25, 2017) – A bill prefiled in the Alabama House for the 2018 session would exempt the purchase of gold and silver bullion from state sales and use tax, encouraging its use and taking the first step toward breaking the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.

Rep. Ronald Johnson (R-Sylacauga) prefiled House Bill 19 (HB19). The legislation would exempt the gross proceeds from the sale of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion and coins from sales and use tax in the state.

Imagine if you asked a grocery clerk to break a $5 bill and he charged you a 35 cent tax. Silly, right? After all, you were only exchanging one form of money for another. But that’s essentially what Alabama’s sales tax on gold and silver bullion does. By removing the sales tax on the exchange of gold and silver, Alabama would treat specie as money instead of a commodity. This represents a small step toward reestablishing gold and silver as legal tender and breaking down the Fed’s monopoly on money.

Practically speaking, eliminating taxes on the sale of gold and silver would crack open the door for people to begin using specie in regular business transactions.This would mark an important small step toward currency competition. If sound money gains a foothold in the marketplace against Federal Reserve notes, the people would be able to choose the time-tested stability of gold and silver over the central bank’s rapidly-depreciating paper currency.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The United States Constitution states in Article I, Section 10, “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” States have simply ignored this constitutional provision for years. It’s impossible for states to return to a constitutional sound money system when it taxes gold and silver as a commodity.

This Alabama bill takes a step towards that constitutional requirement, ignored for decades in every state. Such a tactic would set the stage to undermine the monopoly of the Federal Reserve by introducing competition into the monetary system.

Constitutional tender expert Professor William Greene said when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.

“Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”

Once things get to that point, Federal Reserve notes would become largely unwanted and irrelevant for ordinary people. Nullifying the Fed on a state by state level is what will get us there.

NEXT

HB19 will be formally introduced on Jan. 9, 2018, and assigned to the House Committee on Ways and Means – Education. It will need to pass committee by a majority vote before moving on to the full House.

Mike Maharrey
October 25, 2017 at 01:37PM

Tenth Amendment Center: Patrick Henry on Making America “Great”

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center
Patrick Henry didn’t want to make America “great.”
Michael Boldin
October 25, 2017 at 12:26PM

Tenth Amendment Center: John Dickinson Comes into Prominence

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

This is the first of a five-part series on Founding Father John Dickinson, who published his highly influential “Farmer Letters” exactly 250 years ago. The series was first published by the Washington Post’s blog, The Volokh Conspiracy.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of one of the most influential series of writings in American history. The series was John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. The “letters” were twelve newspaper essays, the first of which was published in November, 1767.

In accordance with the contemporaneous understanding of freedom of the press, Dickinson chose to remain anonymous: He signed the letters “A Farmer.” The letters argued that Parliament’s Townshend duties were improper and unconstitutional, and explained how Americans should resist them.

The Farmer took America by storm. The essays were widely reprinted individually, and they were collected as a book. There were editions in Britain and Europe. When Dickinson’s true identity emerged, he became the second most famous American in the world, after Benjamin Franklin.

This is the first of five postings on the life and thought of John Dickinson. In addition to examining The Farmer and other writings, these postings summarize how the author’s views affected the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

John Dickinson was born in Maryland on November 8, 1732 to Samuel and Mary Cadwalader Dickinson. His father was a prosperous planter of tobacco, and later of wheat. In 1740 the family moved to Delaware, occupying a home near Dover. His parents valued learning and provided John and his few surviving siblings with an excellent classical education.

By 1750, John decided he wanted to be a lawyer, and that year he began clerking with the leading attorney in Philadelphia. In 1754, his parents sent him to London’s Middle Temple, where he studied for another three years. His correspondence with his parents from England still survives, displaying mature commentary on daily life and English political developments.

Thus, Dickinson received many advantages. But in London he encountered a severe obstacle: poor health. Even as a young man, he seems to be been subject to infection, and this remained true throughout his life. After age 40, he also suffered from gout.

In 1757, he was admitted to the bar at the Middle Temple and returned to America. Success in his Philadelphia law practice was rapid. Besides being bright and diligent, he seems to have had a magnetic presence. He was the kind of man people wanted to be around and wanted to entrust with their affairs.

Much of his Dickinson’s practice centered on private rather than public law: decedents’ estates, land claims, and most likely trusts. As was true of other founders, the rules prevailing in private law—particularly the rules binding fiduciaries—influenced Dickinson’s attitudes toward public law.

In those days Pennsylvania and Delaware were tied in harness (they had a common governor), so a young man of promise could aspire to a political career in both states. Before John was 27, he won a seat in the Delaware colonial assembly. He was re-elected the following year, and thereupon his colleagues in the assembly elected him Speaker. In 1762, he won a special election to fill a vacancy in the Pennsylvania house of assembly. He was re-elected in 1763 and 1764.

While serving in the Pennsylvania assembly he faced a political crisis. Dickinson had frequently been critical of the colony’s propriety charter with the Penn family. However, when Joseph Galloway and Benjamin Franklin—two of the colony’s most powerful figures—proposed to petition the king to convert it into a royal charter, Dickinson was skeptical. A royal charter, he believed, would leave Pennsylvania unprotected if the British government ever became oppressive.

On May 24, 1764 Dickinson rose in the assembly to deliver an elaborate speech in opposition to the petition. A written version of this oration survives. It was extraordinary for its careful balancing of the risks and rewards attributable to alternative courses of conduct. It was extraordinary also for use of what Dickinson’s beloved Roman authors called sententiae—sound bites. Among them:

*          “Power is like the ocean; not easily admitting limits to be fixed in it.”

*          “It will be much easier for me to bear the unmerited reflections of a mistaken zeal, than the just reproaches of a guilty mind.”

*          “A good man ought to serve his country, even tho’ she resents his services.”

The speech identified the charter change as a constitutional alteration requiring special procedures to adopt. Dickinson maintained that a legislature elected under one constitution has no power to create another one. A new constitution required the “almost universal consent of the people.”

Although Dickinson overwhelmingly lost the Assembly vote, he was soon vindicated. The passage of the Stamp Act the following year demonstrated the correctness of his prediction that the British government might prove more oppressive than the Penn family. The charter change request died quietly.

In 1765, Pennsylvania sent Dickinson to the Stamp Act Congress in New York. His fellow commissioners (delegates) selected him to author the Congress’s chief pronouncement, the “Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonists.” Although Parliament soon repealed the Stamp Act, two years later Parliament replaced it with the Townshend Acts. That action provoked the Farmer letters.

Rob Natelson
October 25, 2017 at 11:49AM

Tenth Amendment Center: Wisconsin Committee Passes Bill to Legalize Commercial Hemp Farming; Defy Federal Prohibition

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

MADISON, Wisc. (Oct. 25, 2017) – Last week, a Wisconsin Senate committee unanimously approved a bill that would legalize commercial industrial hemp production in the state, setting the foundation to end federal prohibition in effect.

A bipartisan coalition of 12 senators introduced Senate Bill 119 (SB119) in March. Under the proposed law, industrial hemp would be treated as an agricultural crop subject to regulation by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Under SB119, the department would create a license authorizing the planting, growing, cultivating, harvesting, and processing of industrial hemp for “commercial purposes or research.”

The licensing program would be “shall issue,” meaning the department would be required to issue a license to any person meeting statutory requirements. Without this section, the department could deny applications for a myriad of reasons.

SB119 would require DATCP to promulgate rules for the administration of the licensing law, as well as for certifying industrial hemp and for developing programs for researching industrial hemp genetics.

The bill authorizes licensees to import, sell and retain industrial hemp seed. It also creates a structure to develop certified seed in the state. These are important provisions that would encourage the development of a hemp industry in Wisconsin. The federal government currently restricts the acquisition of seed. Encouraging seed development within the state would incentivize the hemp market.

The law does not require the state hemp program to conform to any federal regulations. How the program operates in practice will ultimately depend on how the DATCP formulates the rules.

On Oct, 18, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Small Business and Tourism recommended SB119 for approval by a 9-0 vote.

There is a companion bill making its way through the Wisconsin House.

FEDERAL FARM BILL

Early in 2014, President Barack Obama signed a new farm bill into law, which included a provision allowing a handful of states to begin limited research programs growing hemp. The “hemp amendment”

…allows State Agriculture Departments, colleges and universities to grow hemp, defined as the non-drug oil-seed and fiber varieties of Cannabis, for academic or agricultural research purposes, but it applies only to states where industrial hemp farming is already legal under state law.

In short, current federal law authorizes the farming of hemp – by research institutions, or within state pilot programs – for research only. Farming for commercial purposes by individuals and businesses remains prohibited. AB183 ignores federal prohibition and authorizes commercial farming and production anyway.

OTHER STATES

By rejecting any need for federal approval, SB119 sets the stage to nullify the federal hemp ban in practice. Wisconsin could join with other states – including Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, California and Vermont – that have simply ignored federal prohibition and legalized industrial hemp production within their state borders.

While prospective hemp growers would still have to take federal law into consideration, by eliminating the state requirement for federal permission, the proposed Wisconsin law would clear away a major obstacle to widespread commercial hemp farming within the borders of the state.

Farmers in SE Colorado started harvesting the plant in 2013, and farmers in Vermont began harvesting in 2014, effectively nullifying federal restrictions on such agricultural activities. On Feb. 2, 2105, the Oregon hemp industry officially opened for business and one week later, the first license went to a small non-profit group. As more people engage in hemp production and the market grows within these states, more people will become emboldened creating an exponential wave, ultimately nullifying the federal ban in effect.

HUGE MARKET FOR HEMP

According to a 2005 Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. is the only developed nation that hasn’t developed an industrial hemp crop for economic purposes.

Experts suggest that the U.S. market for hemp is around $600 million per year. They count as many as 25,000 uses for industrial hemp, including food, cosmetics, plastics and bio-fuel. The U.S. is currently the world’s #1 importer of hemp fiber for various products, with China and Canada acting as the top two exporters in the world.

During World War II, the United States military relied heavily on hemp products, which resulted in the famous campaign and government-produced film, “Hemp for Victory!”

WHAT’S NEXT

SB119 will now move to the full Senate for further consideration.

Mike Maharrey
October 25, 2017 at 11:19AM

Tenth Amendment Center: TAC Activist Pushes Back Against Local Government Bullying Tactics

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

For Immediate Release Oct. 24, 2017

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky will represent Michael Maharrey in a lawsuit filed against him by the city after he attempted to obtain documents relating to surveillance cameras owned and operated by the Lexington Police Department (“LPD”).

“Honestly, I think it’s a bullying tactic more than anything,” Maharrey said. “I think the city thought it could just slap me with a lawsuit and I’d go away. Newsflash – I’m not going away.”

The LPD denied Maharrey’s records request citing a statute that exempts certain documents relating to homeland security, along with a second statute exempting certain “investigative reports.” On appeal, the attorney general’s office rejected both exemptions claimed by the LPD. At that point the city sued Maharrey.

“One of the fundamental principles of our government is transparency. The public has a right to know the actions of government officials and disseminate that information to others. City officials appear to be shirking their responsibility to provide records they are obligated to by law, simply because they don’t want the public to have access to them,” ACLU of Kentucky attorney Heather Gatnarek said.

National communications director for the Tenth Amendment Center, Maharrey formed a local organization, We See You Watching Lexington, to address surveillance issues in Lexington after the city installed cameras at the Berry Hill Skate Park over the summer. The open records request was part of We See You Watching Lexington’s efforts to learn more about surveillance and ensure some accountability exists.

“It turns out it doesn’t,” Maharrey said. “This lawsuit underscores the need for transparency and oversight when it comes to government surveillance in Lexington. The police clearly want to keep their surveillance programs hidden. We need to push for structural changes that will force government agencies in Fayette County to operate transparently.”

We See You Watching Lexington is working for the introduction and passage of a local ordinance that would take the first step toward limiting the unchecked use of surveillance technologies that violate basic privacy rights and feed into a broader national surveillance state.

ACLU of Kentucky Cooperating Attorney Clay Barkley of Strobo Barkley PLLC and ACLU of Kentucky Attorney Heather Gatnarek represent Maharrey.

###

We See You Watching Lexington is a coalition of people concerned about privacy and government surveillance in Lexington, Kentucky. Our goal is to “watch the watchers,” and ensure surveillance programs operated by the Lexington Police Department and other government agencies are transparent, accountable, and kept within strict parameters.

Michael Boldin
October 24, 2017 at 12:05PM

Tenth Amendment Center: Activism 101 Podcast #22: Seize the Day

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

This is the 22nd installment of a podcast following local activism efforts I am spearheading to address the surveillance state in Lexington, Ky. Through this series, you will get an inside look at boots-on-the-ground activism as it happens. The goal is to create a step-by-step how-to on tackling issues at the local level. You can access the other episodes HERE.

In the last episode, I talked about how the lawsuit the city of Lexington filed against me over an open records request has created some challenges – specifically in keeping focused on our ultimate activism goals. But getting sued has also created some great opportunities – in particular, an appearance on the InfoWars show Real News with David Knight. The key was being willing to move quickly when the door opened.

In this installment of the Activism 101 podcast, I talk about the importance of seizing the day and taking advantage of every opportunity as it pops up.

SHOW NOTES

Interview: Sued by Local Government for Open Records Request on Surveillance

Mike Maharrey
October 24, 2017 at 10:37AM

Tenth Amendment Center: Federal Reserve Chair Short List? More of the Same!

From Tenth Amendment Center

...from Tenth Amendment Center

by Ron Paul

This week President Trump revealed his final five candidates for Federal Reserve chair. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, all five have strong ties to the financial and political establishment. The leading candidates are former Federal Reserve governor and Morgan Stanley banker Kevin Warsh and current Fed governor, former investment banker, Carlyle Group partner, and George H.W. Bush administration official Jerome Powell. Gary Cohn, current director of the president’s National Economic Council and former president of Goldman Sachs, is also on Trump’s list.

Trump is also considering reappointing Janet Yellen, even though when he was running for president he repeatedly criticized her for pursuing policies harmful to the middle class. Of course candidate Trump also promised to support Audit the Fed and even voiced support for returning to the gold standard. But, he has not even uttered the words “Audit the Fed,” or talked about any changes to monetary policy, since the election.

Instead, President Trump, in complete contradiction to candidate Trump, has praised Yellen for being a “low-interest-rate-person.” One reason Trump may have changed his position is that, like most first-term presidents, he thinks low interest rates will help him win reelection. Trump may also realize that his welfare and warfare spending plans require an accommodative Fed to monetize the federal debt. The truth is President Trump’s embrace of status quo monetary policy could prove fatal to both his presidency and the American economy.

The failure of the Fed’s post-2008 policies of unprecedented money creation and record-low interest rates shows our experiment with fiat money is nearing its inevitable end. All of Trump’s potential picks are likely to continue the Fed’s current policies. Even the ones who say they favor higher rates will likely bow to the wishes of their friends in the financial and political establishment and make sure any rate hikes are minuscule. Appointing a Fed chair who will continue, or only make marginal changes to, these failed policies will hasten the collapse while making the resulting depression more painful.

Some say that Trump could make a radical change in monetary policy by appointing Stanford University professor and former George W. Bush administration Treasury official John Taylor. Professor Taylor is a leading advocate of a “rules-based” monetary policy. Advocates of forcing the Fed to follow specific rules say this will bring stability and predictability to monetary policy. However, a rules-based policy still allows the Fed to control the money supply and distort interest rates, thus still plaguing the economy with Fed-created bubbles and busts.

Trump would do well to appoint a Fed chair who follows the teachings of the Austrian school of economics and thus understands that the only thing the Fed can do to “fix” the economy is allow the correction to run its course. He should also use his bully pulpit to pass Audit the Fed and legislation legalizing competing currencies.

Fortunately, even if Trump is not speaking out on Audit the Fed, many Americans are demanding that Congress vote on and pass this bill. An increasing number of Americans are seeking alternatives to the Federal Reserve System, such as precious metals and cyber currency.

Another positive development is occurring in the states. Arizona recently passed legislation recognizing gold, silver, and other precious metals as legal tender. Wyoming will consider similar legislation next year. If Congress refuses to act to restore a free market in money by auditing and ending the Fed, more states are likely to pass these laws as more Americans reject fiat currency in favor of real money.

Tenth Amendment Center
October 24, 2017 at 12:24AM