The Republican Party will call for an audit of the Federal Reserve and a commission to examine restoring the link between the dollar and gold at its convention in Tampa next week.
The issues, long championed by Texas Sen. Ron Paul, are included in drafts of the GOP’s platform, the Financial Times reports. The move would mark the first time the gold standard will be mentioned in mainstream politics in 30 years.
Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, co-chair of the platform committee, said the issues were not adopted to placate Paul and the estimated 500 delegates he picked up during his campaign for the presidential nomination.
“These were adopted because they are things that Republicans agree on,” Blackburn told the Financial Times. “The House recently passed a bill on this, and this is something that we think needs to be done.”
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan created a gold commission – 10 years after President Richard Nixon broke the link between gold and the U.S. dollar during the oil crisis – but the panel ultimately backed the dollar.
The Reagan move stemmed from the GOP’s 1980 platform, which referred to “restoration of a dependable monetary standard.” Meanwhile, the 1984 platform stated that “the gold standard may be a useful mechanism.”
The gold standard has not been mentioned in recent GOP platforms.
“There is a growing recognition within the Republican party and in America more generally that we’re not going to be able to print our way to prosperity,” Sean Fieler, chairman of the American Principles Project, which has pushed for a return to the gold standard, told the Financial Times.
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