Libertarian Leanings

This Week's Favorites...

...From Power Line:

On Trump Calling Out Victoria Nuland

🔥 David Sacks on Trump Calling Out Victoria Nuland by Name in His Latest Speech

"Nuland is the Fauci of this situation. The same way that Fauci was supposed to be protecting us from viruses and then funded gain-of-function research. Victoria Nuland was supposed to be our chief… https://t.co/ijhU5lh3tk pic.twitter.com/IeyOemJmOv

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) February 24, 2023

Mississippi Legislature Votes Overwhelmingly to End Sales Taxes on Gold and Silver

Jp Cortez, Sound Money Defense League

(Jackson, Mississippi) – State lawmakers of both houses have just voted overwhelmingly to exempt physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium coins and bullion from the Mississippi state sales tax, sending the bill to Governor Tate Reeves (R) for his signature.

Senate Bill 2019, sponsored by Sen. Chad McMahan (R – 6), passed yesterday out of the full senate by a vote of 47-2. This afternoon, Rep. Jody Steverson’s identical House Bill 1661 passed out of the full house chamber on an overwhelming voice vote.

Backed by the Sound Money Defense League, Money Metals Exchange, and in-state Mississippi dealers and investors, the legislative effort built upon last year's momentum. In 2022, a similar sales tax exemption bill had passed out of the Mississippi House of Representatives overwhelmingly but it missed a deadline in the Senate needed to receive a hearing.

If Gov. Reeves signs the bill next week (or if he simply chooses not to veto it), Mississippi will become the 43^rd state to exempt sales of sound money from state sales tax. The effective date is July 1, 2023.

Every one of Mississippi’s neighbors (Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee) have already stopped taxing the monetary metals. Most recently, Tennessee ended this tax in 2022, and Arkansas and Ohio eliminated this tax in 2021.

Under the status quo in Mississippi, citizens are discouraged from protecting their savings against the devaluation of the dollar because they are penalized with sales taxation for doing so.

Eliminating sales taxes on gold and silver is good public policy for several reasons:

• Levying sales taxes on precious metals is inappropriate. Sales taxes are typically levied on final consumer goods. Computers, shirts, and shoes carry sales taxes because the consumer is "consuming" the good. Precious metals are inherently held for resale, not "consumption," making the application of sales taxes on precious metals inappropriate.

• Studies have shown that taxing precious metals is an inefficient form of revenue collection. The results of one study involving Michigan show that any sales tax proceeds a state collects on precious metals are likely surpassed by the state revenue lost from conventions, businesses, and economic activity that are driven out of the state.

• Taxing gold and silver harms in-state businesses. It’s a competitive marketplace, so buyers will take their business to neighboring states, such as Alabama or Louisiana (which have eliminated or reduced sales tax on precious metals), thereby undermining Mississippi jobs. Levying sales tax on precious metals harms in-state businesses who will lose business to out-of-state precious metals dealers. Investors can easily avoid paying $136.50 in sales taxes, for example, on a $1,950 purchase of a one-ounce gold bar.

• Taxing precious metals is unfair to certain savers and investors. Gold and silver are held as forms of savings and investment. Mississippi does not tax the purchase of stocks, bonds, ETFs, currencies, and other financial instruments. 

• Taxing precious metals is harmful to citizens attempting to protect their assets. Purchasers of precious metals aren't fat-cat investors. Most who buy precious metals do so in small increments as a way of saving money. Precious metals investors are purchasing precious metals as a way to preserve their wealth against the damages of inflation. Inflation harms the poorest among us, including pensioners, Mississippians on fixed incomes, wage earners, savers, and more. 

The trend across the nation is to eliminate taxes on precious metals. The state of Louisiana and Ohio both experimented briefly with reimposing sales taxes on precious metals purchases. They both quickly reversed course (within two years) and reinstated their sales tax exemptions on precious metals -- because businesses, coin conventions, and state tax revenues were leaving the state.

After the two identical Mississippi bills are transmitted from their respective chambers, Governor Tate Reeves must sign or veto the legislation within 5 days after transmittal (excluding Sunday), or it becomes law without his signature.

In 2023, bills to restore sound, constitutional money have also been introduced in Alaska, Iowa, West Virginia, South Carolina, Missouri, Minnesota, Tennessee, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming,  Kansas, and more.

Currently Mississippi is tied for 45^th out of 50 in the 2023 Sound Money Index. Passage of these measures would increase the state’s ranking dramatically.

Jp Cortez is the Policy Director for the Sound Money Defense League, a non-partisan, national public policy group working to restore sound money at the state and federal level and publisher of the Sound Money Index.

Biden Pushing the U.S. into the Great Reset

Kevin Stocklin, The Epoch Times:  Biden Admin Negotiates Deal to Give WHO Authority Over US Pandemic Policies

The Biden administration is preparing to sign up the United States to a “legally binding” accord with the World Health Organization (WHO) that would give this Geneva-based UN subsidiary the authority to dictate America’s policies during a pandemic.

[...]

“They want to see a centralized, vaccine-and-medication-based response, and a very restrictive response in terms of controlling populations,” David Bell, a public health physician and former WHO staffer specializing in epidemic policy, told The Epoch Times. “They get to decide what is a health emergency, and they are putting in place a surveillance mechanism that will ensure that there are potential emergencies to declare.”

The WHO pandemic treaty is part of a two-track effort, coinciding with an initiative by the World Health Assembly (WHA) to create new global pandemic regulations that would also supersede the laws of member states. 

[...]

Physician Meryl Nass told The Epoch Times: “If these rules go through as currently drafted, I, as a doctor, will be told what I am allowed to give a patient and what I am prohibited from giving a patient whenever the WHO declares a public health emergency. So they can tell you you’re getting remdesivir, but you can’t have hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. What they’re also saying is they believe in equity, which means everybody in the world gets vaccinated, whether or not you need it, whether or not you’re already immune.”

Read the rest here.

We're Winning

This is gold!! 🙌 @TruthSeek01011 pic.twitter.com/dOSTITTiy6

— Suzy🇨🇦 (@Susiemagooziee) February 16, 2023

Iowa Seeks to End Capital Gains Taxes on Gold and Silver

Jp Cortez, Money Metals News Service

(Des Moines, Iowa) – With inflation raging across America, an Iowa lawmaker seeks to end one of the strongest disincentives to owning and using gold and silver: capital gains taxes.

A tax-neutral bill introduced by Rep. Jeff Shipley (R – Van Buren), House File 208 would prompt Iowa taxpayers to remove from their reported state income all gains (or losses) tied to sales of gold and silver.

Iowa rightfully exempted the monetary metals from state sales taxes years ago. Removing income tax from the precious metals is the logical next step.  By passing this bill, Iowa would join several other states in ending income taxation of the only form of money mentioned in U.S. Constitution.

According to Rep. Shipley, "Inflation is destroying the wealth and earnings of Iowa families, and people are looking for places to save their wealth without being hammered by taxes. Gold and silver are the only money mentioned in the U.S. Constitution and Iowa shouldn't be taxing these metals."

Wyoming, Arizona, Utah have already passed bills similar to HF 208. South Carolina, West Virginia, Missouri, and Idaho are considering such measures right now.

Several decades ago, monetary gold and silver -- and dollars formally redeemable in gold and silver -- were supplanted by the Federal Reserve note as America’s currency. However, an increasing number of Iowa citizens are realizing that holding gold and/or silver as a form of savings can help protect against the ongoing devaluation of the Federal Reserve note.

Here are a few reasons why House File 208 is good public policy:

• Current Iowa law assesses taxes on imaginary gains. Under current law, a taxpayer who sells precious metals may end up with a capital “gain” in terms of Federal Reserve Notes. This capital “gain” is not necessarily a real gain, it’s often a nominal gain that results from the inflation created by the Federal Reserve and the attendant decline in the dollar’s purchasing power.

            Yet this nominal gain is taxed at the federal level – and, because Iowa uses federal adjusted gross income (AGI) as a starting point for Iowa income calculations, this nominal gain is taxed again by the Hawkeye State.

• Inflation harms the poorest among us. Inflation is a regressive tax. The hardest hit are wage earners, savers, and pensioners on fixed incomes – as well as those who own few or no tangible assets.

• Taxing imaginary gains is harmful to citizens attempting to protect their assets. Investments in precious metals coins and bullion are rightly exempt from Iowa’s sales tax. Neutralizing Iowa’s income tax treatment of the monetary metals would remove the last major disincentive in Iowa that stands against the ownership and use of the monetary metals.

Policies that penalize savers in precious metals reduce the likelihood that Iowa citizens will take prudent steps to insulate themselves from the inflation and financial turmoil caused by Congress and the Federal Reserve.

Iowa is currently ranked 18^th on the Sound Money Index. If HF 208 becomes law, the Hawkeye State would be competing for a top spot against states like Wyoming, South Dakota, and Alaska, the three states currently atop the index.

Last week, the Wyoming Senate and the Missouri Senate both became the first states in 2023 to pass sound money legislation out of a full legislative chamber.

More than a dozen states have introduced pro-sound money legislation in 2023 so far, including Alaska, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Oregon, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Florida, and more.

 

Jp Cortez is a graduate of Auburn University and a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina. He is the Policy Director of the Sound Money Defense League, an organization working to bring back gold and silver as America's constitutional money. Follow him on Twitter @JpCortez27

 

Mississippi Bill Would End All Taxes on, Invest State Funds in, Gold & Silver

Jp Cortez, Money Metals News Service

(Jackson, Mississippi) – A lawmaker in Mississippi introduced legislation yesterday that would prompt the state to invest a small portion of state funds in gold and silver, as well as eliminate sales and income tax liabilities on the monetary metals.

Mississippi is one only eight states that still participates in the increasingly controversial and outmoded practice of charging sales taxes on precious metals, i.e. constitutional sound money.  A separate bill pending in the Mississippi legislature right now would end the sales tax specifically. 

Of the eight states that still charge sales tax on gold and silver, five (Mississippi, Maine, Kentucky, Wisconsin, New Jersey) are considering bills to end this tax in 2023.  

But Senate Bill 2966, introduced by Sen. Melanie Sojourner, goes further by 1) exempting purchases of gold and silver from sales taxes, 2) removing any gain or loss on the sale or exchange of gold and silver bullion that is otherwise included in a taxpayer’s federal adjusted gross income, 3) prompting the state treasurer to invest no less than 1% of the excess general and special funds of the state in gold or silver, and 4) establishing an in-state bullion depository to store any gold or silver that may be transferred to or otherwise acquired by the state.

Mississippi is among more than a dozen states overall that are considering sound money legislation this session, underscoring the growing national backlash to today’s runaway inflation problem caused by excessive federal debt and central bank money printing.

Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming have already enacted similar income tax exemptions into law.

Meanwhile, the Wyoming Senate and the Missouri Senate each passed measures this month that would similarly prompt their own state treasurers to hold gold and silver in order to protect the state’s assets.

Removing both sales and income taxation from gold and silver is good policy for several reasons:

• Taxing precious metals is unfair to certain savers and investors. Gold and silver are held as forms of savings and investment. Mississippi does not tax the purchase of stocks, bonds, ETFs, currencies, and other financial instruments.

• Levying sales taxes on precious metals is inappropriate. Sales taxes are typically levied on final consumer goods. Computers, shirts, and shoes carry sales taxes because the consumer is "consuming" the good. Precious metals are inherently held for resale, not "consumption," making the application of sales taxes on precious metals inappropriate.

• Current Mississippi law assesses taxes on imaginary gains. Under current law, a taxpayer who sells precious metals may end up with a capital “gain” in terms of Federal Reserve Notes. This capital “gain” is not necessarily a real gain, it’s often a nominal gain that results from the inflation created by the Federal Reserve and the attendant decline in the dollar’s purchasing power.

Yet this nominal gain is taxed at the federal level – and, because Mississippi uses federal adjusted gross income (AGI) as a starting point for Mississippi income calculations, this nominal gain is taxed again by the Magnolia State.

• Inflation harms the poorest among us. Inflation is a regressive tax. The hardest hit are wage earners, savers, and pensioners on fixed incomes – as well as those who own few or no tangible assets.

• Taxing purchases and imaginary gains of precious metals is harmful to citizens attempting to protect their assets. Neutralizing Mississippi’s sales and income tax treatment of the monetary metals would remove two major disincentives in Mississippi that stand against the ownership and use of the monetary metals.

Meanwhile, Ohio is the only state currently known to hold physical gold as part of its state funds, even though the inclusion of precious metals in a financial portfolio has been shown to increase real returns while also reducing volatility.

Most states have substantial exposure to debt paper (such as bonds), most of which have a substantially negative real rate of return as a result of inflation rates that are substantially higher than the nominal yield on the bonds.

Current economic circumstances have sparked increased interest in many states to hold gold and silver as a form of financial insurance. Other bills to facilitate gold and silver holdings have also been introduced this year in Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming… with another bill expected soon in Idaho.

Mississippi is currently tied for 45^th on the 2023 Sound Money Index.  If SB 2966 becomes law, the Mississippi would rival Wyoming, the state currently at the top of the index with a score of 56 out of 100.

More than a dozen states have introduced pro-sound money legislation in 2023 so far, including Alaska, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Oregon, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Florida, and more.

 

Jp Cortez is a graduate of Auburn University and a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina. He is the Policy Director of the Sound Money Defense League, an organization working to bring back gold and silver as America's constitutional money. Follow him on Twitter @JpCortez27

The Babe Pitching a Complete Game at Age 38

October 1, 1933

Babe Ruth Pitching Game Footage From His Final Appearance In 1933 pic.twitter.com/Re2ak7hhwm

— Baseball In Pics (@baseballinpix) February 13, 2023

Tulsi Gabbard on the Weaponization of Government

Tulsi Gabbard gave one of the great speeches on the weaponization of the #FBI and the rest of government with the help of big tech#TwitterFiles #tulsi #censorship #bigtech #vaccinegenocide #HunterBidenLaptop pic.twitter.com/AEqoRqzbz4

— Vidmax.com (@VidmaxMedia) February 11, 2023

A Decade Later, U.S. State Department Still Funding Coronavirus Research in China

NEW: Rand Paul breaks down how the U.S. government still funds Chinese coronavirus research.

"The main group that's been getting this money is EcoHealth Alliance. Over $100 million. A lot of it through the State Department."@RandPaul pic.twitter.com/L2pMKB8IOq

— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2023