[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8122-8123]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           REGULATING THE DOLLAR IS CONGRESS' RESPONSIBILITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, how long is Congress going to sit idly 
by while the Federal Reserve destroys the value of the U.S. dollar? On 
Friday, May 7, our dollar was worth only one twelve-hundredth of an 
ounce of gold. That means that the dollar has lost more than three-
quarters of its value in just 9 years, since 2001.
  Let's not kid ourselves and think the value of our dollars in terms 
of gold doesn't matter. Where gold prices go, other prices follow. We 
are either going to see the dollar price of gold fall or we are in for 
a blast of inflation that will crush the middle class and lead to yet 
another recession.
  If you think that this can't happen, let me remind you that is 
exactly what happened in the 1970s and the early 1980s. Do we want to 
go back to the 1970s? Do we want to have double-digit inflation 
followed by double-digit unemployment? Well, that will happen unless we 
stabilize the U.S. dollar.

[[Page 8123]]

  And let's not kid ourselves and think that because the dollar is 
rising against the euro, all is well in America. The euro and the 
dollar are both headed off the financial cliff. The euro is just 
jumping first. Mr. Speaker, how can we expect to have a stable economy 
or a stable financial market without a stable currency? The dollar is 
involved in every single transaction we do. If it moves around, it 
takes everything with it. We have seen in the past 2 years just how 
high the cost of an unstable dollar can be.
  Robert Mundell, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and adviser to 
President Reagan, says that it was the Federal Reserve that caused the 
real estate bubble and bust. He says that the Fed is responsible for 
the economic crisis we are in today. That makes sense. It takes a lot 
of power to do this much damage, and there is no economic power greater 
than money.
  Here's what happens, and people are not stupid: When the price of 
gold heads up, people sense that inflation is on the way. The way you 
protect yourself from inflation is to buy real assets with borrowed 
money. The longer the inflation goes on, the more leverage builds up 
and the bigger the ultimate crash. Well, we got the bubble in real 
assets in 2001 to 2007 and the crash came in 2008. Do we want another 
one? Isn't 9.9 percent unemployment high enough?
  Mr. Speaker, I have right here a pocket Constitution that many 
Members carry around with them. When all else fails, we ought to read 
the Constitution. It says in article I, section 8, Congress shall have 
the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign 
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.
  What this means is that Congress is supposed to set the value of the 
dollar. It is the constitutional duty of Congress to regulate the value 
of our money. But Congress ignores its legal obligation and does not 
regulate the value of money. What Congress does, it gives the Fed the 
responsibility to regulate interest rates. But the Constitution does 
not give the Fed or any other government agency the power to regulate 
interest rates.
  There's a lot of talk about how important it is that the Federal 
Reserve should be independent. Well, Mr. Speaker, I don't believe that 
any part of the government should be independent of the Constitution. 
All the Fed's vaunted independence has produced is two boom-bust cycles 
in 10 years, the second one worse than the first.
  Mr. Speaker, there is wisdom in the Constitution. That is why I have 
introduced H.R. 835, which is called the Dollar Bill Act. This bill 
would fulfill Congress' constitutional responsibility to define the 
value of the dollar. By doing so, we can stabilize the value of the 
dollar and stabilize the American economy.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to hold hearings on this bill. The American 
people want a stable economy and a stable financial market, so we need 
a stable dollar. It's time for Congress to buck it up and fulfill its 
constitutional duty and regulate the value of the dollar.
  And that's just the way it is.

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