The GOP Debate — the Top Issue

There’s lots for which we’ll be listening at the GOP presidential candidates’ debate Wednesday — including how the contenders do without President Trump in the room, at least not physically. We’ll listen for Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, Brexit, and the Monroe Doctrine. And all the social issues from abortion post-Roe to parents’ rights and all the rest. Above all, though, the big issue for which we will be listening is the entangled issues of debt and the dollar.The monetary crisis and the debt crisis it has engendered, the inflation it has caused, and the challenges it’s inviting are, by far in our view, the most important issue facing America. Some 50 years after President Nixon severed the link between the dollar and gold, the value of the greenback has plunged by some 98 percent as measured in the monetary metal, to just under a 1,900th of an ounce, sparking asset inflation and the “illusion of wealth.”The end of the gold exchange standard established at Bretton Woods removed a brake on government spending and borrowing, while opening the door to monetary experiments like the Fed’s Quantitative Easing and its multi-year effort to stimulate the economy by keeping interest rates artificially below market rates to stimulate the economy. Editors flying the flag of the Sun have been editorializing about honest money since the Civil War.What is surprising — even, to us, even shocking — is the failure of the GOP to rise to this issue, despite chance after chance to do so. This came into focus in the 2016 Republican primaries when, at a GOP debate at Colorado, the candidates were asked about the Fed. Senator Cruz was the only one to say the Fed “should get out of the business of trying to juice our economy and simply be focused on sound money and monetary stability, ideally tied to gold.”This issue had been simmering since 1952, when, eight years after Bretton Woods, Dwight Eisenhower ran for president on a platform calling for a restoration of gold convertibility to the dollar. When he won, though, a debate broke out. One faction said before restoring the dollar, the economy needed to be stabilized. The other faction said the economy couldn’t be stabilized until gold convertibility was achieved. Eisenhower took the first — and wrong — course.We’ve shied away from this issue ever since. During the 2016 campaign, President-to-be Trump seemed to grasp the issue — and attacked the Democrats for relying on the Fed to juice the economy with the money it could create. The 2016 GOP platform called for a monetary commission to be established by Congress to chart a way back to a metallic monetary standard, mincing language for honest money. In office, though, Mr. Trump failed to seize the day.The campaign that is about to have the first formal presidential primary debate comes in the wake of the inflation that erupted with the election of President Biden. It is the biggest issue the candidates face, and it is the principal — not the only — issue on which we’ll have an ear cocked. If the candidates on stage tonight or Mr. Trump fail to step up, they will be forced to campaign against the Democrats in the shallows of lesser issues.

The GOP Debate — the Top Issue

The GOP Debate — the Top Issue

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