Utah House Approves Gold And Silver As Legal Tender

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/utah-house-approves-gold-and-silver-as-currency-bill.php

The Utah House of Representatives has approved a bill that allowing gold and silver coins to be used as currency, though unlike similar bills in other states, it doesn't force anyone to accept gold or silver as legal tender.

House Bill 317 was introduced by state Rep. Brad Galvez (R) last week, and passed the House by a vote of 47-26. It will now head to the state Senate for a vote.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Galvez explained: "This is a step in preparedness, a step in security that allows us to be able to help hold up our economy as the dollar continues to shrink."

As TPM has been documenting, there's been a recent push for gold and silver coins to be used as currency. Georgia state Rep. Bobby Franklin (R) recently reintroduced legislation to force his state to conduct all monetary transactions with U.S. gold or silver coins -- including the payment of taxes.
But Georgia and Utah are just two of at least ten states to introduced similar legislation in the past few years -- much of it in 2009 -- and others like Florida have come up with creative alternatives like gold vending machines in shopping malls.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Is it really legal tender if people aren't forced to accept it? Your title seems confused with the article.

[ag]

state-level bimetallims )) Of course, Utahns aren't going to be crucified on the Cross of Gold, are they )))))))

[RI]

state-level bimetallims )) Of course, Utahns aren't going to be crucified on the Cross of Gold, are they )))))))

WJB would be proud.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There is already a thread on the Economics board about this from before it was approved by the Utah House.

As I said there:

Actually, all this bill does is eliminate Utah capital gain taxes that would otherwise apply to transactions in U.S. gold and silver coins and fund a useless study about whether Utah could and should issue establish its own form of legal tender.

Since it is explicit in the Constitution that Utah can't coin its own money, the result of that study is a foregone conclusion, leaving this bill to be a tax break or possibly a tax penalty for people who deal in U.S. gold and silver coins.  After all, people wouldn't be able to claim a capital loss on the coins either if they went down in value from their current heights.

[ag]

There is already a thread on the Economics board about this from before it was approved by the Utah House.

Should I move it there?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This thread is already longer, and it seems more like a U.S. than an Economics topic to me.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

I'd support it. Our money should be backed by a hard commodity. My idea is attaching our dollar to oil. But gold or silver or a combination of precious metals would be a good idea. It would be a nightmare to the Fed to not be able to print money out of thin air like they have been since the 70's.