There Will Be No Federal Solution to the Crisis That’s Coming

As President-elect Donald Trump assembles a cabinet that will be tasked with implementing policy change at the federal level, individual state governments are plotting their own policy responses.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is organizing a coalition of blue states to resist the “Make America Great Again” agenda.

Democrat governors aim to, for example, defend sanctuary cities against immigration enforcement efforts, impose their own “clean” energy mandates, and retain funding for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that could be targeted for elimination by the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, red state governors are largely vowing to work with President Trump to help him implement his agenda.

But however hopeful Trump backers may be for sweeping reforms, the incoming administration will face roadblocks from Congress, the courts, and the entrenched bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.

The reality is that not all of the nation’s problems can be solved at the federal level.

The elephant in the room – the rapidly growing $36 trillion national debt – wasn’t even a seriously contested issue in the 2024 campaign. Trump has effectively conceded that the debt won’t be tackled in any meaningful way because the political will to do so does not exist.

It is up to individual citizens to protect themselves from the risks of a debt crisis that could cause the currency to depreciate even more rapidly than it has been in recent years. That means holding sound money in the form of physical precious metals will be no less important in the Trump years that it was in the Biden years.

States can also act to help protect their citizens from unsound fiscal and monetary policies.

In fact, several states passed pro-sound money legislation in 2024, thanks in large part to efforts by Money Metals, its customers, and the Sound Money Defense League. For example, Alabama and Nebraska exempted bullion transactions from income taxes.

Wisconsin and New Jersey eliminated sales taxes on sound money.

Money Metals’ newly released 2025 Sound Money Index reflects this latest progress. It also reveals that several states, including Vermont, Maine, and California, remain hostile environments for precious metals investors.

Although some state governors will never see the light when it comes to sound money principles, that doesn’t mean they can’t be pushed to embrace common sense reforms. In fact, bills to eliminate taxes on precious metals have sailed through on a bipartisan basis to become law in blue states such as New Jersey.

Taxing citizens who choose to exchange fiat currency for bullion (or vice versa) is both unfair and counterproductive. States that tax precious metals transactions are at a competitive disadvantage to states that don’t.

Those states that take the lead in removing all sales and income taxes on gold and silver, holding bullion in official reserves, and fully recognizing gold and silver as legal tender will be the least vulnerable to a meltdown in the U.S. fiat dollar.

********