Fighting the mythical global currency

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) is hyping the myth that the Obama administration is planning to replace the dollar with a global currency. In fact, the proposal under discussion (which the Obama administration does not support) would create a new global reserve currency -- it would not replace the dollar as the legal currency here in the US.

Bachmann has even proposed a constitutional amendment that would prevent the president from entering "into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States" As TPM DC's Eric Kleefeld points out, it has a disturbing number of cosponsors (currently 32). Are these members -- who are all Republicans -- aware that no one is proposing creating a new currency that would serve as legal tender in the United States? I suspected that they might be pandering to ill-informed constituents but education, income, etc. are not closely related to cosponsorship -- the only consistent predictor is the conservatism of the legislator's previous voting record.

Bachmann's straw man legislation inspired me to check out another well-known myth -- the fictitious "NAFTA superhighway" that was hyped by Ron Paul and talk radio hosts. And in fact former Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) introduced a resolution in 2007 expressing the sense of Congress that "the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada." That bill attracted 52 cosponsors, including eight Democrats. With the exception of Marty Kaptur, a free trade opponent from Ohio, all of the Democrats -- including Kirsten Gillibrand, the newly appointed senator from New York (!) -- represented heavily rural districts that John Kerry lost in 2004. Supporters of the resolution tended to be more conservative and anti-trade.

When we combine the cosponsorship lists on these bills, we get what I call the Congressional myth caucus -- the fourteen members who sponsored or cosponsored both Bachmann's amendment and Goode's resolution:

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN)
Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Paul Broun (R-GA)
Mary Fallin (R-OK)
Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
Darrell Issa (R-CA)
Walter Jones (R-NC)
Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
Ron Paul (R-TX)
Zach Wamp (R-TN)

It's a brilliant approach to politics -- you scare people with a phony rumor, take a stand against a position no one supports, and then claim credit for its defeat.

Update 5/6 12:12 PM: The list above has been corrected to fix a coding error.

Comments

[rone]

It's a shame that such a shrill lawmaker wasn't voted out. So very close...

[Rob]

"It's a brilliant approach to politics -- you scare people with a phony rumor, take a stand against a position no one supports, and then claim credit for its defeat." Would that be like the brouhaha about libraries being threatened by the PATRIOT Act?

[ming]

Unfortunately, Republicans are exhibiting such a high level of hostility to Obama, that it's time to be worried about it. The country is really in "another September 11", a real crisis. No one knows when the job losses will stop, or even moderate. Amazingly, losses of 650,000 jobs per month is now the "new normal". Yet we have dozens of Republicans in Congress getting excited about something that does not even exist: the fantasy that Obama is working to replace the U.S. dollar.

[Sam Simple]

I wish Michelle Bachman would point out in the Constitution where it says anyone has a "right to a fair trail". Or where it says in the Constitution that people have a right to "the pursuit of happiness".

Because, hey! If it is not expressly stated in the Constitution, it doesn't exist.

[daniel rotter]

"Would that be like the brouhaha about libraries being threatened by the PATRIOT Act?"

Last time I checked, no one proposed a constitutional amendment regarding that matter, unlike Bachmann and her nonsense regarding U.S. currency.