Arizona bill makes gold and silver legal tender

[Mack27]

http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-lawmakers-pass-bill-making-silver-gold-legal-011925729.html

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) - The Arizona Senate on Tuesday approved a measure to make gold and silver legal currency in the state, in a response to what backers said was a lack of confidence in the international monetary system.

The legislation cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by an 18-10 vote after being approved by the state House earlier this month. It now goes to Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who has not indicated if she will sign it into law or veto it.

The bill calls for Arizona to make gold and silver coins and bullion legal tender beginning in mid-2014, joining existing U.S. currency issued by the federal government.

If you're curious, it is completely legal for them to do this. It's expressly written into the US constitution.

Article I - The Legislative Branch
Section 10

Clause 1:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

The state can't make it's own money, but it can make existing gold and silver coin legal tender. Gold Krugerrands, Spanish doubloons, Canadian Maple Leafs and whatever other gold and silver coins you can think of would be legal tender. Possibly things that have never been legal tender like souvenir coins could be legal tender too, if they're gold or silver. Maybe this Disney silver coin would be legal tender in Arizona.

Utah did this last year. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/final-note/utah-officially-makes-gold-and-silver-legal-tender

It doesn't really change much of anything, nobody is forced to take gold coins as payment and you can't even pay your taxes with it. It's mostly just flexing constitutional muscles that have never been flexed as well as possibly setting the states up to better weather a hyper-inflation event in the future.

Does anybody have any problems with it?

 

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[Russell Williams]