Constitutional Tender Act :: GA Bill HR430

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Link to watch progress of others states' introducing similar bills...

Cursory research revealed that GA is introducing legislation to conform to the constitution regarding "Legal Tender". I wish I could say this is total reformation and/or resurrection of our dollar before it tumbles into oblivion.
It is, however, a leap in the right direction in my opinion.

To amend Title 7 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to banking and finance, so as provide a short title; to provide legislative findings; to define certain terms; to require any bank or lending institution serving as a depository for the state or any department or agency of the state to offer and to accept gold and silver coin for deposit; to amend Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to state government, so as to provide legislative findings; to define certain terms; to require the exclusive use of gold and silver coin as tender in payment of debts by or to the state; to provide for related matters; to provide an effective date; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA:

SECTION 1.
This Act shall be known and may be cited as the "Constitutional Tender Act."

SECTION 2.
Title 7 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to banking and finance, is amended by adding a new chapter to read as follows:

"CHAPTER 9

7-9-1.
The General Assembly finds and declares that sound, constitutionally based money is essential to the livelihood of the people of this state, to the stability and growth of the economy of this state and region, and vitally affects the public interest. The General Assembly further finds that Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution provides that no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.

Are we headed to a Gold standard again?

I won't get my hopes up concerning this but I will definately be keeping an eye on it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

reply to post by DrMattMaddix


If this bill passes many of the banking families will be pissed!
Will probably lead to some interesting news stories in the future though.
Keep us posted on it's progress my friend I am very interested in this thread.

S&F!!!!

Darn good find. Just read through it and it would appear that they are changing all state transactions to a gold & silver standard. i.e. "Federal Reserve Bank Notes" will not be able to be used to pay debts to the state (including taxes) and any debts the state owes will be paid in gold and/or silver.

While I agree with what they're doing, do they have in place a way to ensure that people have access to gold & silver coins? How is Susie Homemaker who works at McDonalds to pay her taxes? You know darn good and well that McDonalds is only going to pay her in "Federal Reserve Bank Notes" NOT gold and/or silver.

I think this may cause some problems, since very few people have "gold or silver coins" minted by the US prior to the Fed Res getting it's claws into us.

I think this is another symbolic gesture towards the Federal government. The people are trying to express their will and their greivances. If the Federal government fails to listen or outright contradicts the laws put in place by the States, then we will start seeing more drastic measures. Again i'm not getting my hopes up, but this is definitely worth following.

Edit: Going a little off-topic I also noticed this Bill also proposed by Rep. Bobby Franklin: House Bill 1

To amend the Official Code of Georgia Annotated so as to provide that prenatal murder shall be unlawful in all events and to remove numerous references to such procedures; to amend Title 16, relating to crimes and offenses, so as to make certain findings of fact; to define certain terms; to provide that any prenatal murder shall be unlawful; to provide a penalty; to repeal certain exceptions to certain offenses; to provide for severability; to provide an effective date; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

Looks like Georgia is also trying to outlaw Abortion despite the Federal government.

I think I will start a new topic on it.



[edit on 26-2-2009 by ExistenceUnknown]

reply to post by cnichols
If enough states get on board with this, the Feds will have no choice. We have to keep after them, until our dollar is fixed to precious metals. Write to the Govenor of Georgia, as well as the Speaker of the House. Write to every Georgia legislator you can locate and thank them.
Then write to our legislators in Little Rock and insist we do the same. And apply pressure. That's the only thing politicians understand.

reply to post by DrMattMaddix

I don't necessarily know if this would be a good thing.....

I mean, I have a problem with some of the wording of the bill. On the face of it, it sounds good, BUT......

This bill says the State will only take gold or silver coin in return for debts owed to the state, and also, that they will pay their debts in gold or silver.

What is the average taypayer or business going to do if they don't have gold or silver to pay any tax debts, say?

I read the Fed government is planning to stop producing gold and silver coins as soon as they run out of the current coin blanks they have, and after that, they don't plan to start back again for an unspecified period of time........

ALSO, Federally minted coins will be valued at the current price, but people who have been following this know that the price of gold and silver can be and has been manipulated in the past, That won't change, see below.

The value of each coin used pursuant to Code Section 50-37-3 as payment of obligations by and to the state shall be determined by the current market value of the silver or gold content of each coin and not determined by the face value of each coin itself. The value of the silver or gold content of each coin shall be equal to the most recent United States dollar value set on the current business day by the London Silver Fixing Price and the London Gold Fixing Price as of 10:30 A.M. Greenwich Mean Time and 15:00 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time as follows:

(1) Silver eagles and gold eagles shall be valued at the current market value of the silver or gold content of each coin; and

(2) Pre-1965 silver coins shall be valued at the current market value of the silver content of each coin, multiplied times 0.715 of the face value of each coin.

AND, pre 1965 Silver coins are tied to the current gold or silver pricing,
based on the face value of the coin but there is a difference in the reimbursement value. Below is the 1965 wording.:

having a 90 percent silver composition and containing when minted approximately 0.7234 troy ounces of silver per dollar of face value.

Here's what I see about these bills that may be a problem:

1. Only Federally minted gold and silver coins will be allowed, NOT any other gold and silver coins.

*If this bill is REALLY supposed to be helping US, why can't they accept other foreign and decorative coins that have been vetted and found to be following a similar standard to Federally minted coins?*

2. Pre 1965 is more likely to be what the average person may have in their possession.

*why are they not giving the full value of the silver content, the bill says .715 of the face value, current silver price, but the above information says the original minting value had .7234 troy ounces of silver per dollar value. That's a difference, a small difference, but still....*

3. Depositing your gold and silver coins means, if the government decides to confiscate gold and silver like they did in the 1930's, it will make it easier.....

4. This bill specifically states all taxes have to be paid in one of the three gold and silver methods, NOT Federal Reserve Notes.

*What will happen to people and business who can't pay their taxes using this method ?*

5. Notice how it says the price will reflect the (I love this wording, so appropriate) "The London Gold Fixing fPrice and The London Silver Fixing Price."

*What happens if once a lot of people jump on this bandwagon, the price is * manipulated * down?*

Just saying...............

[edit on 26-2-2009 by sezsue]

It would be interesting to go to a gold standard. I see a couple problems with it though. If you have gold coins and bars as money, what would stop people from scraping the tiniest amount of gold off coin by coin, then melting in down and making more gold money out of it.

If the gold standard comes back, we better get used to using pocket scales to ensure the coin has not been scraped, and who would determine if the scales have not been tampered with?

With a fed reserve bank note this is not a problem, because a 100 dollar note is still a hundred dollars if the corner was ripped off.

Originally posted by Tentickles
reply to post by DrMattMaddix

 

If this bill passes many of the banking families will be pissed!
Will probably lead to some interesting news stories in the future though.
Keep us posted on it's progress my friend I am very interested in this thread.

I posted a link to the website that is monitoring legislation being prepared in other states.

I'm not an economist or lawyer so some of their terminology in the bill is unclear to me. If I understand what I read they will allow people to use Federal Notes in the private sector but the state itself will not accept or make payouts in Federal Notes after 01/01/10.

Also, Electronic funds transfer through approved channels will be accepted and payed and likely expanded after the bill passes. It's all still very new, so , we'll see.

I always thought that those "soft leather coin purses" for holding Gold & Silver coins (like in the movies) was very quaint.

Seeing all these threads about different states drawing a line in the sand regarding their sovereignty makes me wonder who is yanking on the puppet-strings and why. There are simply too many states doing things like this for it to be 'chance'.