Issue Position: Public Debt and the Nature of Money

Issue Position

In addition to realizing that the earth went around the sun, instead of vice versa, Nicolas Copernicus was one of the first scholars to realize that the debasement of money destroyed governments and society. Later, his conclusions would be echoed by others such as Lenin and John Maynard Keynes, who observed that the process of monetary destruction could destroy capitalist economies. The policy of the U.S. government is now to destroy America through this process.

Specifically, an unconstitutional monstrosity, the Federal Reserve Bank, has assumed, with the connivance of Congress, the power to force all citizens to take its banknotes as if they were money. At the same time, it generates more and more of these notes as it buys up the bad investments of the rich, covering their losses at the expense of all, for each additional note the Federal Reserve causes to be issued destroys the value of the notes already held.

While Congress has the power to borrow money, it never had the power to create a bank to print up the money to borrow. This unconstitutional power has resulted in $17 trillion in debt, much of it held by nations that do not have America's best interest in mind. With each dollar we sink further in debt, we lose our freedom, just as the average person can find himself a slave to debt. As far as I can tell, my opponent sees nothing wrong with this at all, so long as it is a Democrat sinking us.

The Federal Reserve has also held interest rates at extraordinarily low levels for many years, destroying the economy. Without high enough interest interest rates, workers can never save enough to retire, and job opportunities for the young are destroyed. A massive subsidy is given to capitalists to buy machines and replace workers, worsening unemployment. The destructive power of the Federal Reserve is immense, but subtle. As Keynes observed: "The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."

As is the case with nearly every other major problem America has at the federal level, the Constitution provides the solution. When the Constitution was written, everyone knew that experiments with paper money always ended in disaster, and the power that gives rise to paper money--the power to force citizens to take paper as legal tender--was jealously guarded. Under the Constitution, only the States, not the federal government, have the power to pass tender laws. And the tender power of the States was limited: No State was permitted to "make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts." Many of the Founders would have gone further; Thomas Paine declared that any politician who even proposed a tender law should be put to death immediately.

Paine and others foresaw the disaster now upon us: once a magic printing press is allowed to create money out of thin air, it fatally corrupts all in contact with it, and creates an ultimate power unchecked by our toothless and cowardly Supreme Court. As Federal Reserve notes fall in value, and the middle class is decimated by ever-rising prices for necessities, the time will come when Americans realize that a return to Constitutional money is not only the only lawful solution, it is the only solution that preserves freedom and prosperity.

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