Mint This!

Washington, DC - In case you've been living in a cave or Dick Cheney's undisclosed location for the last week, you've missed the story of the "Trillion Dollar Coin." It's being bandied about as a possible alternate solution to the approaching Debt Ceiling crisis as Republicans in Congress gear up to wreck the economy, much like they tried to do two summers ago the last time the Debt Ceiling needed to be raised. You see, all the Debt Ceiling is is a law saying that if Congress has committed to spending more money than we have, they have to authorize the President to borrow money for the things they already said they wanted to buy. If Congress doesn't authorize the president to spend money by raising the Debt Ceiling, the United States defaults on its obligations, the economy goes into the crapper, and we all start buying cans of Fancy Feast for dinner.

A little-known 1990s law allows the US Government to make a Platinum coin in any denomination. If President Obama were to mint a Trillion Dollar coin, and deposit it in the US Treasury, it could bypass the Debt Ceiling question all together. Who knows what Obama will do, but while we're waiting to find out, here are some other coins we at Unsolicited Drivel think should be minted and how we think they should be used: 120 billion $ coin - to give each of the 12 million Americans who are out of work a hundred thousand dollars to tide them over while they look for work; 4 trillion $ coin - to give each of 40 million Americans whose homes are underwater a million dollars so they can pay off their houses and not be thrown out into the street; 800 billion $ coin - to inject directly into the economy to create jobs; 0 $ coin - to pay all of Congress's salary (change should be expected).

Posted by: GMan