BILL: Should We Go Back to a Gold Standard? - H.R. 2435
Tell your reps to take action on The Gold Standard Restoration Act
The Bill
H.R.2435 — The Gold Standard Restoration Act
Bill Details
- Sponsored by Rep. Alexander X. Mooney (R-W.Va) on March 30, 2023
- Co-sponsored by Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Anna Luna (R-Fla.)
- Committees: House - Financial Services
- House: Not yet voted
- Senate: Not yet voted
- President: Not yet signed
Bill Overview
- The "Gold Standard Restoration Act" would tie the dollar to a certain amount of gold.
- The bill claims the dollar has lost its value over time due to inflation caused by the Federal Reserve.
- Argues that the gold standard would put control of the money supply with the market instead of the government and discourage excessive spending.
- Requires the government to disclose its gold holdings and transactions.
What's in the Bill?
Fixes the dollar to a fixed weight of gold
- The "Gold Standard Restoration Act" seeks to define the dollar as a fixed weight of gold and make Federal Reserve notes redeemable for - and exchangeable for - gold at a fixed price.
- This price would be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury based on the market price of gold.
- Within 24 months of its enactment, the Treasury would be required to define the dollar in terms of a fixed weight of gold and make Federal Reserve notes redeemable for gold at this rate.
Will combat inflation and excessive deficit spending
- Claims that the purchasing power of the Federal Reserve Note has declined significantly since the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 and that the Fed's policy of long-term inflation has made American manufacturing uncompetitive.
- Argues that the gold standard would discourage excessive deficit spending, encourage the balancing of Federal budgets, and put control of the money supply with the market instead of the Federal Reserve.
Would make gold holdings publicly available
- The Secretary of Treasury and Federal Reserve would be required to make publicly available their holdings on gold, purchases, sales, swaps, leases, redemptions, and transfers of U.S. gold since 1971.
What Supporters are Saying
“The gold standard would protect against Washington’s irresponsible spending habits and the creation of money out of thin air. Prices would be shaped by economics rather than the instincts of bureaucrats. No longer would our economy be at the mercy of the Federal Reserve and reckless Washington spenders.”
- Lawrence W. Reed, president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, said:
"Government cannot continue to spend and print on a massive scale without producing existential threats to the currency and our economy. The gold standard never failed America, bad ideas and bad politicians did. If we do nothing, disaster awaits us just as it drowned earlier civilizations that spent and inflated their way to ruin."
Tell your reps to take action on The Gold Standard Restoration Act
— Josh Herman & Emma Kansiz
(Photo Credit: Canva)
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H.R. 2435: Gold Standard Restoration Act is a partisan retread from previous Congresses (1984, 2021) sponsored during the 118th Congress by 4 Republican members (Mooney R-WV, Biggs R-AZ, Gosar R-AZ, Luna R-FL) ironically trying to reverse policy from previous Republican Administrations (Nixon, Reagan) showing the schism in the Republican Party of old versus new.
The Nixon Administration ended the Gold Standard in the US established post-WWII among Allies that used gold as a reserve for USD and made the USD the reserve for all other Allied currencies, and no other country currently uses the gold standard.
Paul Krugman, a well-known economist stated (2014), that going back to the gold standard is a frequently occurring topic among right-wing circles. Ironically, it’s coming up again in the 118th Congressional House Freedom Caucus, but there are several reasons why it was discontinued in 1986 by a Republican Administration and never reinstituted:
(1) It won’t prevent inflation caused by scarcity of product just because the price is in gold not USD.
(2) It won’t peg interest rates unless all countries use the gold standard which they don’t. Much of increased prices on imports is interest rate fluctuations, and even domestically produced products using imported materials are effected by interest rate fluctuations.
(3) Interest rate adjustments have been successfully used to control inflation by Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker under the Nixon Administration which lead to the Reagan Presidency which found Supply Side economics could also used interest rates to control inflation.
(4) Nothing prevents businesses in writing contracts based on payment in gold. Most foreign contacts use foreign currency futures to hedge against interest rate fluctuations and these vary well could be gold instead of USD.
(5) The Great Depression lasted 43 months and was only ended by going off the Gold Standard.
Countries that went off the gold standard 1st ended the depression in their country sooner.
(6) Using legislation fixing USD to gold won’t end politicians from managing money supply because the next Congress can pass a law to undo it.
(7) Forcing banks to hold gold in their vaults takes gold out of circulation from other uses (investing, dentistry, aerospace, electronics, jewelry, etc).
“The U.S. officially stopped using the gold standard in 1971 under President Nixon. At the time, inflation was growing and there was a gold run on the horizon. Nixon's administration ended the dollar convertibility to gold, which ended the Bretton Woods System”
“After WWII, the Bretton Woods agreement forced Allied countries to accept the U.S. dollar as a reserve rather than gold, and the U.S. government pledged to keep enough gold to back its dollars. In 1971, the Nixon administration terminated the convertibility of U.S. dollars to gold, creating a fiat currency regime.”
Paul Krugman, well-known economist stated, “the new issue of The Weekly Standard has a piece urging the GOP to "Go Bold With Gold" as in the gold standard. This idea pops up in right-of-center circles constantly, but it's a pure figment of ideological thinking totally devoid of upside to anyone at all.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2014/06/02/enacting-jack-kemps-gold-standard-will-bring-stupendous-growth-to-america-and-the-world/amp/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanlewis/2016/12/01/jack-kemps-gold-standard-act-of-1984-shows-us-how-its-done/amp/
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr2435/cosponsors
https://www.congress.gov/bill/98th-congress/house-bill/5986
https://www.miningforschools.co.za/lets-explore/gold/uses-of-gold
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goldstandard.asp
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/7/16/5900297/case-against-gold-standard
You guessed it John, it was two Republicans who introduced this bill. Anytime a Republican introduces a bill, you'd better look very closely at it as 9 times out of 10 it's going to harm the American public.
The petro dollar is failing and the continuous devaluation of our currency weaker and weaker. The purchasing power of our dollar keeps getting weaker and affects the lower class th e most. Bring back the Gold Standard!
I can't stop laughing, I can't even imagine what kind of idiot thought of this. Obviously someone without an ounce of a background in economics. L O L. It had to be a republican.
Watch Democrats run to buy gold. I do support the gold standard, the impeachment of JoeBama Biden, MyOrkas and then prosecution of Fauci and many others.
GOP get this done and you have done much to return America to a far stronger place.
Gold
You forget one of the biggest problems with the bill. There is only an estimated 244,000 tons of gold existing in the world. The current US economy would need to magically create even more gold out of then air for things to not loose worth. And the US would have to hoard every scrap of gold in the world. That leaves no room for growth. So you would be doing the same job but be paid less but supposedly be worth more on the world market. Things might end up costing less but you would be making less too. So that 40k per year job would on the world market supposedly be worth more while shackling people in the US to how much gold or precious metal the US could hoard and yank out of circulation. Bad trade for everyone
We need to stop looking backwards to solve the very complex problems we now face. Until we have progressive forward thinking leadership, we're doomed to remaining stagnant as a Country.
Please vote NO
Bring back the gold standard. Just like with us, our government should not spend money they don't have...much less spend money that is based on air.
This seems completely unnecessary...I have a hard time believing that the party of extreme capitalism gives a damn about spending at all. We waste billions on corporate welfare then blame all our financial troubles on people with food stamps? Gtfoh. In fact a lot of recently introduced republican bills are just a waste of time and resources. Wtf are y'all doing up there?!
Stay the course and maintai the defining elements of determining the gold standard.
Advantages of a gold standard:
Stability: A gold standard can provide stability to the monetary system by limiting the ability of governments and central banks to create money and inflate the currency supply.
Inflation control: A gold standard can help control inflation by providing a fixed supply of currency that is tied to the value of gold.
Confidence: A gold standard can increase public confidence in the monetary system by providing a tangible asset (gold) to back the currency.
Discipline: A gold standard can help discipline government spending by limiting the ability of governments to finance deficits through money creation.
The fiat dollar isn't backed by anything other than thin air which is why our banks are now crashing. Backed the dollar with hard tangible assets, gold, silver and other commodities. This is a no brainer.
"Most economists agree 99% of why the U.S. got out of the Great Depression was the break with gold ."
NPR Jacob Goldstein, Why We Left the Gold Standard
More RepublicaNazi foolishness.
Right...
Let's all get into the Way-Back Machine and go back in time.
This is moronic.
Let's have an adult conversation about the fact that money is a made-up concept, It only exists because we all agree that it does and we agree to a certain value.
Throwing Gold back into this equation does not really change anything. Except we would have to worry about bad actors hoarding gold to screw with the world's economy...
There's a reason we got off the gold standard and stayed off. Being off the gold standard allows much more flexibility in dealing with economic depressions and recessions. Going back to the gold standard would put us out of sync with the rest of the world's economies and result in economic disasters much worse than we have seen in the last 50 years.
This is a "red herring" at this point. There is no realistic way that this will help manage our debt, our economy, or anything else it claims it will do.
It sounds good on paper, but let's be honest; shifting to Gold will only make the poorest even more poor & the richest way too rich.
The gold standard worked in the past because the value of a currency was defined by the fixed price of gold. The only way to increase the amount of currency was to acuire more gold or to adjust the fixed price. This constrains the government in times of extraordinary need such as a major war, pandemic, market collapse, etc. when more spending is necessary. HR 2435 proposes to tie the value of the dollar to the market price for gold. Just in the last 10 years, the market price of gold has ranged from a low of $1,350 an ounce to a high of nearly $2,300. Where is the stability in that? That type of fluctuation would result in wild gyrations in supply. No country in the world currently ties its currency to a fixed asset. Seems like its proponents have a fanticized memory of the "good old days".
I'm not an econimist, but niether are the people who dreamt this up. we can't ( despite republicans attempts ) go back to the 1800s. this is beyond inept.
Not one single country in the entire world has currency backed by gold (or any other precious metal). Not one. What a ridiculous idea.