Strengthen Our Currency
A good way to measure a nation’s economy is by looking at the purchasing power of its currency. The United States uses fiat currency (aka the U.S. dollar) to conduct commerce within its borders and around the world. While the dollar was backed by gold, its purchasing power remained fairly constant, but when former President Nixon removed the U.S. dollar from the gold standard, it sharply declined in value and has been in decline ever since. This is called inflation. Most of us have watched the movie Home Alone and remember the scene where Kevin buys groceries and pays just under $20. That same amount costs about $40-$50 now.
The reason why everything is more expensive is because our currency, in its current state, is worthless. It’s just paper, otherwise known as fiat currency. By taking us off the gold standard, Richard Nixon opened the door for Congress to increase its spending to the point where we now spend trillions of dollars, and it allowed the Federal Reserve more power in determining the value of the dollar through the use of artificially raising or lowering interest rates and through the printing of money. When Congress, or the president, wants to increase spending, they allow the Federal Reserve to print more money in order to compensate for their increased spending. This has the disastrous effect of decreasing the value of the dollar, thus lessening its purchasing power. Spend more, print more is Congress’ motto. This is also known as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). AOC epitomized this way of thinking when she pushed her Green New Deal and said that we could just print more money to pay for it. This line of thinking is why the United States is now $34 trillion in debt!
Just about everyone within the federal government, including many self-proclaimed conservatives, operates according to MMT, the idea that we can print whatever we need to cover our spending. They vote for increased spending, which leads to more money printing, which further devalues the dollar.
The U.S. dollar is also losing value on the world market as some nations, the Brics nations for instance, are leaning toward ditching the dollar for international trade in favor of developing their own currency that is backed by gold. China is buying the world’s gold reserves in an effort to strengthen their currency, and there is the very real possibility that the U.S. dollar will be replaced with the Chinese Yuan on the international market.
Our current Congress is not prepared for the possibility that the U.S. dollar will no longer be the currency of choice on the international market.
Some have proposed going back to the gold standard but only bring it up when they are up for reelection or running for a different office. In order for putting the dollar on the gold standard to work, the U.S. needs to have enough gold held in reserve to back all the money that has been printed in the last 50 years. It also requires constant audits to ensure that we are not printing more than what we have in reserve.
Janet McNulty propose a different solution. We go back to the gold standard and convert our currency to goldbacks. Goldbacks make gold legal tender and easily spendable. Each bill has gold embedded within it, making it something that has and holds value. It will stop the never-ending money printing that leads to the dollar losing value, which will help curb Congress’ spending. Because goldbacks have gold embedded within them, you can only make them according to the amount of gold you hold in reserve. This creates a finite amount of dollars in the economy, which will cause its purchasing power to go up, prevent Congress from printing money whenever they need to fund their addiction to spending, and make the U.S. dollar competitive on the international market.
Individual states have already started allowing the use of goldbacks. These include Utah, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Dakota. The U.S. Treasury can work with them to create a national set of goldbacks that can be used as legal tender throughout the country.