About a year ago, we took a look at Republicans in a handful of state legislatures who had declared their lack of faith in the U.S. economy by proposing bills to permit their states to accept gold and silver as legal tender and/or to mint their own gold or silver money. 

(Fun fact: Such a bill actually passed Utah’s GOP-controlled legislature and was signed into law by the state’s Republican governor.) 

Well, the right-wing ideologues and conspiracy theorists with no faith in our nation’s economy are at it again. 

Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. 

While Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from issuing their own currency, it does permit states to make “gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” 

Citing concerns with nonexistent “hyperinflation” and baseless fears that the Federal Reserve could collapse at any moment, an increasing number of extreme right-wing Republicans in states are attempting to use this clause as a way to push the country back towards the gold standard (which often is blamed for prolonging the Great Depression and was abandoned in 1933). But returning to a gold (or silver) standard would leave our nation completely powerless to control our own monetary policy, often tying inflation rates to completely arbitrary factors such as the rate that gold is mined on other continents, rather than to the interests of a national economy. It also leaves us without one of our most important tools to push back against economic downturns. 

But that’s not stopping GOP presidential candidates from pushing for it on the national level. 

Ron Paul is sponsoring the "Free Competition in Currency Act," which would allow states to introduce their own currencies, and rival Newt Gingrich is calling for a commission to look at how the country can get back to the gold standard. 

Basically, state-issued currencies are a “terrible” idea, according to at least one economic scholar. 

"Having 50 Feds" could debase the U.S. dollar and even potentially lead the country into default, he said. "The single currency in the United States is working just fine," said [Vanderbilt University economics and finance professor David] Parsley. "I have no idea why anyone would want to destroy something so successful -- unless they actually wanted to destroy the country." 

Thirteen state legislatures reportedly are using taxpayer resources to consider bills to either issue their alternative gold- or silver-based currency, accept other gold or silver coinage as legal tender, or to study such proposals. These states include (click to see the actual bills): 

• Alabama
• Colorado
• Idaho
• Iowa
• Minnesota
• North Carolina
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Virginia
• Washington

So instead of dealing with real issues facing their states – unemployment, education funding, job creation, infrastructure maintenance and development, to name just a few – these Republicans waste time and resources airing their economy-undermining, right-wing conspiracy theories. 

This local legal tender push is just one terrible idea among many popping up across statehouses this year, but it may take the gold as the proposal with the least basis in rational thought.