Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, is presenting his “sound money” bill, HB 578, to the House State Affairs Committee this morning; he said it was written by Edwin Vieira Jr., a lawyer and author from Virginia. Hart told the committee that a dollar originaly “was equal to 371 grains of silver,” but was “decoupled” from gold and silver in 1933. “We are concerned about the future and about where we are going with our monetary system,” Hart said.

He called Vieira “the nation's expert on constitutional money, on gold and silver money.” Hart's bill would let Idahoans use gold and silver coins at face value as “legal tender” and exempt from all taxes any transaction exchanging gold and silver coins for cash. His aim, he said, is “really to provide a lifeboat for the state of Idaho should we have future problems with the federal reserve system and should we need a place to go, should that happen.” He said the bill would return Idaho to “where we really should have been all along.”