Trump, interest rates, and our inspiring history

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

In response to a report that job creation had slowed in May, President Trump chided Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates.

This raises troubling questions about the Fed, as it is almost affectionately referred to by many as if it were a benevolent entity. In fact, the Fed is an entity that exists largely independent of the federal government, yet exercises enormous control over the government via the manipulation of interest rates. The Fed was created in the same year that the income tax was imposed on Americans – in 1913 – and for reasons that aren’t unrelated. The income tax takes money away from American workers directly; the Fed takes money from Americans indirectly, via the hidden tax called inflation.

The Fed also has the power to increase or decrease the cost of money, via the raising or lowering of interest rates, and that gives the Fed tremendous power over the government via its ability to encourage or discourage investment.

Documentary filmmaker Aaron Russo, whose credits include Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd, could not find a law that makes the federal income tax legal, nor could he find proof that the 16^th Amendment establishing the tax was properly ratified. Every penny paid in federal income tax might have been robbed from the American people. There is more than enough evidence in his film America: Freedom to Fascism to justify a full investigation.

And the Fed?

How did a cartel of private banking interests manage to get control over the nation’s money – and its supply? G. Edward Griffin explored the story in his famous book, The Creature From Jekyll Island. It’s a book well worth reading, and it raises questions well worth asking. The president has already said he is interested in abolishing the IRS. Perhaps he ought to look into abolishing the Fed as well. The United States did not have a Fed for the first roughly 125 years of its existence, and during those years, America was prosperous and – even more important – Americans were free. They did not have to “report” their income to the federal government because it was their income, and the federal government had no legal right to take any of it. There was no such thing as withholding – the seizure of people’s money by the federal government before the worker even possesses it. Instead, maybe he gets a “refund” – of his own money – at the end of the year.

Without interest, of course. As opposed to the penalties and interest the IRS levies whenever it claims a taxpayer did not pay every cent they “owe.”

Perhaps the president could make the case that the issuing of money is the rightful – the constitutional – prerogative of the federal government rather than the plaything of a consortium of private banks misleadingly calling itself the Fed that is as “federal” as Federal Express. The Constitution – Article 1, Section 8 – clearly states that “The Congress shall have the power to… coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” 

It says nothing about a Federal Reserve, much less a consortium of private banks. President Trump could point this out in his own inimitable way. He could argue that a national bank controlled by the government is preferable to a central bank controlled by banking interests. Such a bank would be more directly responsible to the American people as opposed to the banking interests that are often at odds with the interests of the people. 

Easily available credit for productive investments was part of Alexander Hamilton’s “American System” of economics championed and implemented by Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Lincoln’s political partner, Henry C. Carey, and by Abraham Lincoln himself.

Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party, so fit makes historical and constitutional sense for President Trump to continue in that tradition. The Federal Reserve Act and the Income Tax were tools of so-called “progressive” Democrats led by Woodrow Wilson to control Americans by taking what they earned and devaluing the buying power of what they were permitted to keep.

The now largely hidden history of the American System featured not only easily available credit for productive investments but also tariffs on imports to encourage domestic manufacturing and consumption. The great American nationalists wanted all nations to have the most modern technology so they too could produce their way to wealth and strength, so no empire could subjugate and exploit them.

President Trump must have this history pressed upon him so he can choose for whom he will work –  huge corporate interests or we the people. Whether small businesses, which constitute the bulk of employers in this country, should be protected from the depredations of huge conglomerates that, among other things, exploit the federal contracting system to enrich themselves at the expense of small businesses and American workers.

He seems to intuitively understand at least some of this history, in view of his use of tariffs to promote domestic industry and the job creation that results. 

Ending the Fed – and abolishing the IRS and using tariffs to finance necessary government functions would do more than just make America great, again.

It would make America America again. 

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