Free money: outlawing legal tender.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Citings - Ron Paul's economic policies - Brief article

When Rev. Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, the measure won 317 cosponsors, earned heavy press coverage, frightened Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and was incorporated into the House's major financial services bill of 2009 (though it has not yet passed). But the libertarian-leaning Paul has always had more ambitious plans to strike at the economic power of the nation's central bank, which he blames for inflation and the boom-bust economic cycle.

Another Paul bill, one that had gleaned no cosponsors a month after he introduced it in December, would end the government's monopoly over the nation's currency. The Free Competition in Currency Act--whose short-term prospects are vanishingly small--would repeal the section of the U.S. code which compels people to accept Federal Reserve notes as payment for debts. To level the playing field for competing...