Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) (photo credit: Michael Vadon via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has propelled the gold standard out of long political hibernation and into the 2016 presidential campaign. Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Huckabee have spoken sympathetically about it. GOP voters do seem, at the very least, supportive of the gold standard.
So no wonder the left has taken out it’s long knives to attack. The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, and CNN have attacked the gold standard recently. So have Salon and the Huffington Post. If Cruz wins in Iowa many more such attacks are to be expected. They’re ill founded.
The gold standard is not a kooky proposition or a device to privilege the rich over working people. That said, as attacks at Wall Street Journal and the center-right AEI show, the gold standard, so long out of the limelight, is rather poorly understood.
The gold standard endured liberal media ridicule during the 2012 presidential cycle where, for instance, Newt Gingrich campaigned in South Carolina for a gold commission (and won, before drifting off to moon colonies). Then the media went back to sleep. Journalists now are giving more attention to the gold standard than it has received in many years.
Ralph Benko, internationally published weekly columnist, co-author of The 21st Century Gold Standard, lead co-editor of the Gerald Malsbary translation from Latin to English of Copernicus’s Essay on Money, is American Principles Project’s Senior Advisor, Economics.
