Kucinich Reportedly Drafting Monetary Reform Legislation

According to an article by John Tiffany on AmericanFreePress.net, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is currently drafting legislation to implement monetary reform in the United States.

The brainchild behind this incipient legislation is the American Montary Institute, which Tiffany bills as "the premier organization for monetary reform in America." Stephen Zarlenga, the director of the Institute, proposes a monetary system based on that of ancient Rome, whose civilization, as we all know, was destroyed through monetary debasement. Consistent with that history, Zarlenga's proposal for the United States is revealed in detail in a "pamphlet" entitled Presenting The American Monetary Act (as of January 18, 2008).

While the "pamphlet" takes sixteen densely packed pages of verbiage to detail Zarlenga's plan, it's salient points are summed up, like Caesar's Gaul, in three parts on pages 2 and 3:

First, incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury where all new money could be created by government as money, not interest-bearing debt, and spent into circulation to promote the general welfare. The monetary system would be monitored to be neither inflationary nor deflationary.

Second, halt the bank’s privilege to create money by ending the fractional reserve system in a gentle and elegant way. All the past monetized private credit would be converted into U.S. government money. Banks would then act as intermediaries accepting savings deposits and loaning them out to borrowers. They would do what people think they do now.

Third, spend new money into circulation on infrastructure, including the crucial “human infrastructure” of education and healthcare needed for a growing society, starting with the $1.6 trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates is needed for infrastructure repair. This would create good jobs across our nation, re-invigorating local economies and re-funding government at all levels.

The supposedly legal basis for this scheme (or, if you prefer, scam) is found in a misrepresentation of the constitutional money power as presented thusly on page 2 of the "pamphlet:"

Under the Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8, our government has the sovereign power to issue money and spend it into circulation to promote the general welfare through the creation and repair of infrastructure, including human infrastructure - health and education - rather than misusing the money system for speculation as banking has historically done, periodically causing one crisis after another. (Emphasis added.)

Actually, as well-informed readers of this blog are aware, Article I, Section 8, states that, "The Congress shall have Power...To coin Money...." (Emphasis added.) [As an aside, there does not appear to be any power granted to Congress by the Constitution to "spend it (money) into circulation to promote the general welfare through the creation and repair of infrastructure, etc." as claimed above.]

Be that as it may, the point here is that Zarlenga's plan does not involve a return to constitutionally mandated gold and silver coinage. That this is the case was revealed by Zarlenga at "a special presentation on the American Monetary Act in Washington on April 23, hosted by Kucinich and the American Monetary Institute." After passing around to the audience a 3rd Century Roman bronze coin, Zarlenga reportedly declared, to quote Tiffany's article, that, "This is an example of how money should be made, issued by the state, not by a private bank such as the Federal Reserve, and having a value assigned by law, rather than intrinsic value like gold or silver coinage."

This unconstitutionally interesting view may be profitably contrasted with a statement in support of government issued paper notes (apparently Lincoln's Civil War era "Greenbacks") made on page 13 of the "pamphlet":

The American Greenbacks are smeared as worthless inflation money when in fact our government authorized $450 million and printed exactly $450 million; and every greenback eventually exchanged one for one with gold coinage – but very few people bothered to exchange them! (Emphasis added.)

Well now, lets' see. Money should be issued by the government and have no intrinsic value like gold or silver coin, but the money the government issued that did maintain its value was fully redeemable in gold coin? Hello? Is anyone home in Zarlengaville? The illogicality of these people is so blatant that I should hardly need to point it out. But it's fun to do so anyway.

What this plan appears to be is an effort to shift the flow of inflationary profits from the coffers of the bankers directly to those of the government. There is little hope for the American people in any of this as, whether it is the hand of the bankers or the hand of the State that picks his pocket, the citizen will be the poorer in either case.

For the record, I will relate, once again, that real monetary reform that would benefit each and every American will come about only through a strict return to the system mandated by the Founders in the Constitution. And that system consists only of circulating silver and gold coins.

Interested readers will find the article from AmericanFreePress.net at the link here and the American Monetary Institute "pamphlet" at the link here.

The text of the Constitution for the United States may be found at the link here.