The SOLUTION to our growing debt, tax and cost-of-living problems (the American Transportation Act) proposes a return to ‘monetizing’ of production as wealth to the people rather than as debts to the people as is currently practiced. ‘Monetizing’ would be done through the government coining and printing the money to pay for the building and maintenance of public roads, bridges and public transit systems. This is the best form of production to be ‘monetized’because building roads and bridges is an excellent way to move newly coined or printed money into commerce.In studying the Supreme Law of our Land, the Constitution of the United States of America, Byron Dale, author of the American Transportation Act, observed that Article 1, Section 8, clause 5 states that Congress was “to coin money.” and clause 7 states that Congress was “to provide …post roads.” Byron reasoned that there would be major advantages to combining the two processes.
Under the principles of Free Coinage, getting metals coined into money and moved into commerce was not a problem. The people who first labored to mine the metals from the earth could take this production into the mint and have it coined into money—‘monetized’ FREE of CHARGE. The value of the newly coined, full-bodied metal money was determined by its weight and purity. The mint returned possession of the metals as coins to the people who exchanged them into commerce when they traded for supplies or other things they needed and wanted.
However, once the printing press is used to create a totally fiat money, getting the money from the printing press into commerce presents a problem. If the paper money is a certificate of deposit representing full-bodied, coined money that has been placed on deposit, no problems arise.
When paper money is printed which is not a certificate of deposit, the principles change. We have a problem.
Why does a piece of paper with a number 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 written on it have that many times more value than an identical piece of paper with the number 1 written on it? Who gets the benefit of that value? Why should the one who gets the benefit of that value be entitled to the benefit? What did he do to earn the value benefit?
At the time of the American Revolution and the writing of the U.S. Constitution, the Spanish milled dollar was the most widely accepted Spain medium of exchange. They were created for the King of Spain. Under the common law, mines of gold and silver belonged to the sovereign wherever they were found even if discovered in the land of other private owners. This prerogative is supposed to have originated, as a necessary incident of the King’s right of coinage, in order to supply him with materials to coin. He simply ‘coined’ the raw resource and exchanged the coins into circulation for other goods produced by the peoples’ labor combined with raw resources of the earth.
History shows Spain to have been leaders in the art of ‘coining’. Coining made the exchange of the valued metals much easier and more convenient. ‘The Spanish Centuries’ written by Alan Lloyd makes some interesting observations. Page 34 states that in 250 B.C. the Carthaginians mined and “stimulated the spread of coinage…no longer of Greek design but bearing the symbols of their own African background.” Page 245 says that, “By the turn of the century (1800) Spanish America with Portuguese Brazil was supplying 9/10th’s of the precious metals produced in the world…nearly 6 thousand million pesos ($6 Billion) (pesos roughly
equivalent to the modern dollar). Less than 1/6th was accounted to Brazil.
World Book Encyclopedia states that Spain rebuilt its economy twice in its history by building roads: Once, from 100-300 A.D and again from 1700-1800. This evidence suggests that the King of Spain paid for the building of the roads with coined metals mined from the earth, that is, one form of wealth, mined metals, traded for another form of wealth, the roads. The King coined the money to his account and put the coins into circulation when he paid for the roads as they were built. This created a wealth medium of exchange placed into commerce in a manner that benefited all of society and roads that benefited all of society. It provided jobs for people and the money to pay the workers. As the money was paid into circulation it flowed into commerce throughout the world.
In 1782, Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on a Money Unit for the United States, WKS III, 446 stated: the unit or Spanish milled dollar is a known coin and the most familiar of all to the mind of people. It is already adopted from south to north.
In 1785, July 6, the United States Continental Congress Resolved that the money unit of the United States of America be one dollar and adopted the decimal system of coinage and the dollar as our unit of account.
The United States Constitution was adopted 3 years later in 1788. The enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8 gave Congress the authority to ‘coin money’.
However, in 1788, no mint had yet been established to ‘coin’ the money. 4 years later the 1792 Coinage Act was passed. It set forth in law, the concept of free coinage. Anyone who brought bullion to the mint could have it weighed, assayed and stamped into coins FREE of CHARGE. The metals were returned to the producer still as a wealth but as a debt-free money in coin form.
We have witnessed growing economic and social problems because the United States has strayed far from the principles of wealth money set forth in the 1792 Coinage Act. According to the Commodity Price Index, the costs of finished goods have increased significantly more than the costs of raw materials such as lead, zinc, oil, foodstuffs, raw farm production, etc. It is a well-advertised event that the purchasing power of the take-home pay of the average American worker has steadily decreased during the past 50 years.
America must have a lower tax load, a reduction in the constantly growing spread between the costs of raw and finished goods (rising cost-of-living) and a restoration of the American worker’s purchasing power, justice and Freedom!
The true problem is not paper money but the way all new money is placed into circulation. Combining Clauses 5 and 7 of Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution into one Act, can solve many problems at the same time.
Congress must print the new money and pay it into circulation for the building and maintenance of America’s roads and bridges.
American Transportation Act
Americans for Better Transportation
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Edina, MN. 55435
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