STATE OF OKLAHOMA

1st Session of the 52nd Legislature (2009)

SENATE
RESOLUTION 18	By:	Brogdon

AS INTRODUCED

A Resolution memorializing Congress to pass legislation to protect American citizens against potential losses due to recent increases in the money supply by restoring gold and silver money in accordance with the Constitution; and directing distribution.

WHEREAS, our Founding Fathers were very familiar with the disastrous consequences, such as sharp price increases and the loss of wealth by most citizens, experienced by those colonies that had issued paper money not backed by gold or silver; and
WHEREAS, our Founding Fathers were very careful to craft a Constitution that prohibits the issuance of paper money by either the federal government or the states by including such statements as “No State shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts...” and only empowering the federal government “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin...”; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution designated the “dollar” as the standard of value, which was acknowledged in the Mint Act of 1792 to be a silver coin containing 371.25 grains of pure silver; and
WHEREAS, our national government’s first experiment with an unbacked paper currency, the Civil War-era “greenback”, led to the large-scale loss of wealth by U.S. citizens when they were paid with “greenbacks”, which had only about half the value of gold-backed notes; and
WHEREAS, the creation of the quasi-public, independent Federal Reserve System by Congress in 1913 has led to our current monetary system of a fiat paper currency, the “Federal Reserve Note”, not backed with either gold or silver since 1971; and
WHEREAS, the Federal Reserve System created a 3,000% increase in the money supply over the years 1959 to 2006, which led to an 89% loss in the purchasing power of our “Federal Reserve Note” paper dollars during the same period; and
WHEREAS, the Federal Reserve System has been greatly increasing the money supply in recent years, and beginning with the financial crises of 2008, undertaking to create additional trillions of dollars out of thin air for bailouts with no end in sight, or as the New York Times for November 26, 2008, put it:  “The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Department of Treasury announced $800 billion in new lending programs on Tuesday, sending a message that they would print as much money as needed to revive the nation’s crippled banking system...”; and
WHEREAS, as a result of these recent, large-scale increases in the money supply, we can expect unprecedented rounds of price increases and economic dislocations in the future, leading to unprecedented losses of value of take-home pay, retirement income, insurance policies and investments by most citizens and possibly ultimate economic chaos.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE 1ST SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:
THAT the Congress of the United States, and particularly the legislative delegation to Congress of the State of Oklahoma, are hereby urged and petitioned to use all of their efforts, energies and diligence to protect all the citizens of this nation from potential, unprecedented losses in the value of take-home pay, retirement income, insurance policies and investments as a result of the Federal Reserve’s ongoing inflation of our unbacked paper money by passing legislation to help restore gold and silver money in accordance with the Constitution, then phasing out the Federal Reserve System and its inflationary paper money, the Federal Reserve Note.

52-1-1683	JCR	3/4/2009 3:49:08 PM