Don’t listen to liberal columnists. It’s high time for Idaho to embrace sound money | Opinion
The disdain felt by the Statesman’s Bryan Clark toward conservative business owners in Idaho has again reared its ugly head.
This is at least the third time Clark has taken to these pages to bash sound money legislation while bashing me personally and the nationally focused company I chose to locate in Idaho.
I get it. Clark doesn’t believe gold and silver are money, despite what the U.S. Constitution says.
Clark may think the Federal Reserve Note is some miracle of modern innovation, even though it’s been devalued by 95% since President Richard Nixon severed the dollar’s last link to gold in 1971.
However, it’s unbecoming for this newspaper to be so cavalier about proposals that would help Idaho working families deal with the problems with our currency. Idahoans are suffering staggering losses on their savings and the value of their wages as inflation saps away the dollar’s purchasing power.
The same is true of the state itself, whose naive governor breached his fiduciary duty to the taxpayers by vetoing a bill that would have enabled the state treasurer to consider a gold hedge. As a result of this action, Idaho’s $13 billion pile of debt paper continues to be annually devalued by several hundred million dollars in real terms.
The gold and silver provisions in Speaker Mike Moyle’s tax cut bill are almost identical to laws already on the books in five other states and under consideration this year by 7 other legislatures. And yes, Money Metals supports those bills too because our advocacy is national in scope. All told, 13 states do not assess income tax on gold and silver.
Citizens aren’t able to deduct the capital losses they suffer when holding Federal Reserve notes, so why should they pay income tax when that very same devaluation has resulted in nominal “gains” on constitutional money, i.e. gold and silver?
The gold and silver provisions in HB 40 are tax-neutral. If a taxpayer federally deducts capital losses on sales of gold and silver, he must add them back to his Idaho income.
If Clark thinks gold and silver are bad investments, he should favor this bill. It would increase the state’s tax revenue!
The reality, though, is the monetary metals are rising sharply in their dollar price, particularly gold. Having risen from roughly $250 to $2,800 over the past 25 years, way more than the S&P 500, you’d think the naysayers would have slunk away by now.
Gold’s utility for preserving wealth has certainly not escaped the attention of central banks across the world. They’ve been stockpiling gold at record rates — especially since 2022.
While Idaho dithers, numerous other U.S. states have embraced sound money — removing sales and income taxes from the monetary metals and adding physical gold to their reserves.
For example, Utah just allocated $180 million to physical gold bullion, and directed the treasurer’s office to bring forth other proposals after “analyzing the role of precious metals in augmenting, stabilizing, and ensuring the economic security and prosperity of the state, the families and residents of the state, and businesses in the state.”
As other states enact sound money reforms, Idaho has steadily lost standing on the Sound Money Index which ranks all 50 states. Idaho is down to 14th place, having recently been leapfrogged by Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas and Nebraska. Idaho’s neighbors Wyoming and Utah are ranked first and seventh, respectively. If HB 40 passes, though, Idaho would rank above Utah.
Idaho has a rich heritage of gold and silver mining and values generally aligned with the principles embodied by the U.S. Constitution. It’s high time for Gem State policymakers to fully embrace sound money. Failure to do so will continue to be costly to Idaho’s financial health.