We're Stopping U.S. Drug Trade Next Monday

The U.S. drug trade, whether it be from Columbia, Mexico, or the mountains of California are all about one thing and that is money; specifically, the U.S. dollar. We spend over $3 billion every year in our attempt to stop drugs from coming into our country and the trade continues to grow. It's estimated that over $1 trillion leave our country every year in payment for illegal drugs. There have been proposals to legalize some illegal drugs and tax the sale of drugs to increase the flow of taxes to government and stop parts of the illegal drug trade, but this would create a whole new set of problems.

When you have a problem the best solution is to control the problem by managing the part of the problem over which you have the most control. The element of U.S. Drug Trafficking that we have control over is the U.S. dollar, the government prints them, they guarantee them, and they dispose of them.

What if next Friday it was announced that next Monday we will be changing the color of all U.S. paper currencies from green to pink , and you had one week to present any green U.S. currency that you had in your position to your local bank for exchange into pink currency or your green currency would be of no value. You, with a valid ID, could present up to $10,000 in green currency at your local bank and receive a like amount of pink currency. Your name and Social Security number would be entered into a national database with your exchanged amount thus making it impossible for you to go from bank to bank redeeming green for pink. If you had more then $10,000 to exchange you would have to explain and verify where you got it; which could be done with your last year's tax return or other supporting paperwork. This would not affect any bank deposits, brokerage deposits, or valid business accounts.

Now let's assume you're active in the U.S. Drug Trade, you grow marijuana out in that field behind your house, and you have a spare bedroom in your home full of $20.00, $50.00 and $100.00 dollar bills totaling one million dollars. What are you going to do with all your money next week? Alternatively, a better question: the week after next when it's worthless?

What if you're a Mexican Drug Lord, and you have a truck loaded with 200 pounds of cocaine scheduled for shipment to the U.S. in two days; are you going to ship it to the U.S. or are you going to reroute it to France? How are you going to pay your suppliers now that all those one hundred dollar bills are worthless?

What if you're a street dealer, and you have $100,000 stashed under a floor board in your bedroom. You may have nine friends who are willing to go to the bank for you, but then they're going to have to tie themselves to that $10,000 and had better report it on their 1040 next April, or they might find themselves sitting across form an IRS agent.

It is estimated that 80% of the one hundred dollar bills printed in the United States make their way out of the United States within two weeks as a part of the black market trade. What if you're holding 100,000 of those one hundred bills in Columbia; what are you going to do with them?

This is the Illegal Drug Trade, part of the Black Market, controlled for the most part by organized crime. Print some pink money this month, blue next month, and purple the month after and those boys will find someone else's back yard to play in, but that's only half the opportunity. There's the Underground Economy.

The Underground Economy revolves around illegal aliens. The Underground Economy, estimated to be 10% of our GDP or $1.4 trillion are the unreported payments to the nannies, construction workers, landscapers, and others that are paid off the books. The IRS estimated that they are losing $400 million in tax revenues to the Underground Economy. It's estimated that as much as 50% of these funds are being sent back home, mostly to Mexico and South America. What would happen if next week all that money south of the boarder became worth less than toilet paper? Do you think that would have an effect on the number of illegal boarder crossings? Do you think this would open up some jobs for unemployed United States citizens? Do you think the boarder traffic would have more going south then north?

What would happen to the bank robbery or kidnapping business? Why would you rob a bank or kidnap someone if the money that you walked off with after risking your life could become worthless next Monday? Maybe instead you'd become a landscaper or construction worker.

This is a simple solution to a complex problem, and it won't be well received by some who make their living trading in drugs or employing illegal's; but it's time that we stop the flow of money out of our country and recognize that by just printing more money, we are not solving our problems. In addition we have to stop using 390 million gallons of gasoline to power our automobile habit and use the natural gas that we already own.

These are just of few of the elements of The Best of the U.S. Tax and Stimulus Program which can be found in full on my blog.

Do us a favor, copy this article and send it to our President, your Senator and Representative and ask one question. “Why aren't we changing the color of our currency next week?”