Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, is pitching his silver medallion bill to the House State Affairs Committee this morning. HB 633 would permit Idaho's state treasurer to contract with a firm to produce an Idaho silver medallion that could be used as legal tender to pay state taxes. The bill also would grant 10-year income and property tax exemptions to a firm that opens a silver processing operation in Idaho; and provide incentives for processing ore at the Bunker Hill Superfund Site. "HB 633 is about trying to put some Idahoans to work," Hart said, and also creating a silver medallion "that citizens of Idaho can use to protect the value of their savings or the value of their investments."

In his bill, Hart quoted from Section 10, Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, "No state shall ... make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts."  He said, "I'm not sure how exactly it came about that we ignored that, but that is in our Constitution." He said in his view, the nation did better under the 1792 Coinage Act than it has under the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. "From 1792 to 1913, we had 17 percent inflation in the United States. Since 1913 to today we've had 3,200 percent inflation." Said Hart, "This bill is not setting up another money system, in fact I would be surprised if more than 1 percent of money in circulation in Idaho took this form. But it would give Idahoans ... an option, where they could store their wealth, they could store it in a precious metal. ... It would give our citizens a place to store some of their wealth while at the same time putting Idahoans to work."

Asked if the medallion would have a face value for use in paying taxes, Hart said, "It will not have a face value; my feeling is if it did, we would be coining money, which we can't do under the U.S. Constitution. ... So what it does, is it would fluctuate in value with the market." The bill says the medallion's value would be pegged to that of the existing American Eagle medallion.