The New American: Gold and Silver Are Money Again in Wyoming
Article By Joe Wolverton on The New American
A law recognizing gold and silver as currency and legal tender without qualification is now in full effect in Wyoming.
The Wyoming Legal Tender Act (HB103) removed tax penalties from people who choose to use gold and silver specie as a currency of exchange.
Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul and Wyoming Campaign for Liberty State Coordinator Cathy Ide issued the following statements regarding the Wyoming legislature’s passage of HB 103: “Wyoming citizens will no longer be punished with any taxes simply for choosing to use gold as money, as laid out by the U.S. Constitution.“
“Passage of the Wyoming Legal Tender Act is the latest sign that dissatisfaction with the Federal Reserve’s money monopoly — and the movement to change our fiat currency system led by my Campaign for Liberty — is alive and growing,” Ron Paul wrote in a press release announcing the official enactment of the measure.
In plain English, this statute provides a way for men and women of Wyoming to buy and sell gold and silver without having to treat it as a capital gain, thus reducing the reach of the Federal Reserve inside the sovereign borders of their state.
This is in direct contradiction of Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads, “No State shall … make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”
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.
Wyoming is doing its part to restore the Constitution and to restore sound money with the enactment and enforcement of its Legal Tender Act. Other states, Ron Paul believes, will soon follow. “As the economy slides into another Fed-created downturn, I predict the movement to pass state legal tender laws will grow," Paul asserted.