[nfbmi-talk] Could the blind be cause o $1 extinction?f

Terry Eagle terrydeagle at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 13 13:31:52 UTC 2012


Wednesday, December 12, 2012 
 Article from Lansing State Journal 

Editorial: Time to phase out dollar bills 

If Congress and President Barack Obama were truly serious about avoiding the
"fiscal cliff" come Jan. 1, they'd start with a few easy measures instead of
going for the whole ball of wax at one time. They could get rid of the $1
bill, for instance. The reason is simple: Coins last longer than paper
money, thus are cheaper over the long run. How much cheaper? The Government
Accountability Office said last week that switching to $1 coins would save
the U.S. Treasury, and the taxpayers - us - $4.4 billion over the next 30
years. (It would also help the Treasury comply with a judge's ruling that
requires it to make money more friendly to the blind.) For a nation that
counts its deficit in the trillions of dollars, that would be a small drop
in the fiscal bucket. Congress appears loath to make any big changes,
however, until it's staring into the abyss, and the odds are long that
Republicans and Democrats will ever agree on major changes to their pet
programs. Approving a plan to phase out the dollar bill in favor of coins
would at least start the ball rolling in the right direction. It is true
that Americans have soundly rejected every previous attempt by the federal
government to get them to switch from bills to coins. Experience in Canada,
however, has demonstrated that it's not impossible to get people to accept
coins over bills. ... The only solution is to stop replacing worn-out bills,
as now must be done every four or five years. As the bills get scarcer,
Americans will have no choice but to use the coins. Eventually, they'll
learn to like them ... It's an easy way to save $4.4 billion. 






More information about the NFBMI-Talk mailing list