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If Obama Can Just Create A Trillion Dollar Coin, Then Why Do We Have To Pay Taxes?

If Obama Can Just Create A Trillion Dollar Coin, Then Why Do We Have To Pay TaxesIf Barack Obama can “solve” the debt ceiling crisis by printing up some trillion dollar coins, then why does the federal government need our money?  As another debt ceiling showdown approaches, many in the liberal media are suggesting that if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling that Obama should just have the U.S. Treasury create a trillion dollar platinum coin and use it to pay our bills.  It sounds crazy, but many notable voices (including Paul Krugman of the New York Times) are supporting this idea.  But if the federal government has had the power to create trillion dollar coins out of thin air all this time, then why do we have to pay taxes?  Not only that, why do we have a national debt?  If the federal government can just create money whenever it wants, then why does the federal government ever have to borrow it from others?  The U.S. Constitution actually grants Congress the power to “coin money”, so why is the Federal Reserve doing it?  Those are some very important questions.  Most Americans don’t even realize that the U.S. government never actually needed to borrow a single penny from anyone else.  The U.S. Congress has the authority to create debt-free money whenever it wants to.  Conceivably, the entire federal government could be funded without ever borrowing a single dollar and without ever receiving a single dollar from any of us in taxes.  Just imagine that – a nation without a single penny of national debt, no income tax and no IRS.  What a wonderful world that would be.  Of course there would be other potential dangers under such a system (such as runaway inflation), and those dangers would have to be addressed.  But the truth is that we don’t have to have an income tax or 16 trillion dollars of government debt.  We only have those things because we have chosen to have those things.

Sometimes, a crisis can illuminate options that most people had not considered previously.  As another debt ceiling crisis draws closer, many are looking for ways for the U.S. government to be able to continue to pay its bills if Congress does not authorize an increase in the debt ceiling.

If a debt ceiling agreement is not worked out, the U.S. government will soon only be able to pay about half the bills that are coming due after interest payments on the national debt (which will almost certainly be prioritized) are made.

That is why a lot of people on the left are pushing the “trillion dollar coin” alternative.  So how would this work exactly?  The mechanics were recently explained by Jim Pethokoukis on his American Enterprise Institute blog…

There are limits on how much paper money the U.S. can circulate and rules that govern coinage on gold, silver, and copper.  BUT, the Treasury has broad discretion on coins made from platinum.  The theory goes that the U.S. Mint would create a handful of trillion dollar (or more) platinum coins.  The President would then order the coins deposited at the Fed, who would then put the coin(s) in the Treasury who now can pay all their bills and a default is removed from the equation.  The effects on the currency market and inflation are unclear, to say the least.

In my opinion, if anyone in the federal government is going to be creating money out of thin air, it should be the U.S. Congress.  After all, according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, it is the U.S. Congress that has been granted the authority to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.

But those that are pushing Obama to create a “trillion dollar coin” point to a law that Congress passed that allows the U.S. Treasury to mint platinum coins.  The following is from a recent CNN article…

Normally, the Federal Reserve is charged with issuing currency. But U.S. law, specifically 31 USC § 5112, also grants Treasury permission to “mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins.”

This section of law was meant to allow for the printing of commemorative coins and the like. But the Treasury Secretary has the authority to mint these coins in any denomination he or she sees fit.

But it wouldn’t quite be that easy.  According to a recent ABC News article, some elements of the coin design would have to be determined by legislation…

The more difficult part comes sometime after the decision is made to coin the platinum and before the Mint gets to work in sculpting the pieces.

At that point, the American people must decide whose face will adorn the trillion dollar trinket. The process to determine the “specs” of the coin, U.S. Mint Public Affairs Specialist Genevieve Billia warns, must be “determined by legislation,” creating the potential for another congressional impasse.

So we would likely end up back at square one.

But if printing up a “trillion dollar coin” does not work out, Paul Krugman of the New York Times has come up with another option…

Don’t like the platinum coin option? Here’s a functionally equivalent alternative: have the Treasury sell pieces of paper labeled “moral obligation coupons”, which declare the intention of the government to redeem these coupons at face value in one year.

It should be clearly stated on the coupons that the government has no, repeat no, legal obligation to pay anything at all; you see, they’re not debt, and therefore don’t count against the debt limit. But that shouldn’t keep them from having substantial market value.

Of course there is a very, very low probability that any of these wild ideas will ever be tried, but this debate has raised some very interesting points.

The truth is that we do not have to have a system where more money is only created when more debt is created.  We could have a system where the federal government directly creates debt-free money that is spent directly into circulation by the federal government.

In fact, this has happened before.

As I have written about previously, during the presidency of JFK a limited number of debt-free United States Notes were issued by the U.S. Treasury and spent by the U.S. government directly into circulation without any new debt being created.  In fact, each bill said “United States Note” right at the top.

Unfortunately, after JFK’s presidency no more debt-free United States Notes were ever issued.

But even before JFK, there were times when debt-free United States Notes were being used.  According to Wikipedia, United States Notes were first used during the Civil War….

They were originally issued directly into circulation by the U.S. Treasury to pay expenses incurred by the Union during the American Civil War. Over the next century, the legislation governing these notes was modified many times and numerous versions have been issued by the Treasury.

So why are we using debt-based Federal Reserve Notes today instead of debt-free United States Notes?

If the Federal Reserve did not exist and the U.S. government directly created money instead of borrowing it, it is conceivable that we could have a national debt of $0.00 today instead of $16,432,707,263,449.56.

Which option do you think our children and our grandchildren will wish that we had opted for?

In a system where the government directly created money, it is also conceivable that we could completely do away with the income tax and the IRS completely.  The U.S. once prospered greatly without an income tax, and it could do so again.

And the truth is that our system of taxation is broken beyond repair.  If you doubt this, just read this article.

So what would the downside be to such a system?  Well, of course rampant inflation would be a huge danger.  Allowing Congress to print up money whenever they wanted to would be playing with fire.  That is why it would be imperative for there to be a hard cap on what the federal government could spend.  For example, you could set the cap on spending by the federal government at 20 percent of GDP.  That way we would hopefully never end up looking like the Weimar Republic.

And the current federal debt could be paid down a little at a time using newly created debt-free currency.  This would have to be done slowly to keep inflation under control, but it could be done.

Of course if you wanted to continue to fund the federal government through taxation, there are other options that would still allow you to do away with the income tax.  For example, one of the ways that our founders intended for the federal government to be funded was through tariffs, and we could definitely raise a lot of money that way.  Plus, that would have the added benefit of making American companies much more competitive again and it would reduce the flow of American jobs out of the country.

So am I in favor of having Barack Obama create a trillion dollar coin to get around the debt ceiling crisis?

Most definitely not.  If it does not violate the letter of the Constitution (which I believe it does), it sure does violate the spirit of it.

But if the U.S. Congress decided to shut down the Federal Reserve and the IRS and they decided to abolish the income tax, and instead they started directly issuing debt-free currency directly into circulation, that is something I would very much be in favor of.

Yes, that system would not be perfect either, but it would be far more preferable to what we have today.

So what do you think?  Should we keep our current system of debt-based money, or would a system of debt-free money be better?

Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below…

Trillion Dollar Coin?

There Is Not Going To Be A Solution To Our Economic Problems On The National Level

For those waiting for our economic problems to be solved, you can quit holding your breath.  There is simply not going to be a solution to our economic problems on the national level.  So why is that the case?  Well, it is because the economic policies of both major political parties are very, very similar when you take a close look at them.  Yes, that statement may sound downright bizarre to many Americans, but it is true.  Both major political parties supported the Wall Street bailouts, both of them fully support the job-killing “free trade” globalization agenda, both of them have dramatically increased the national debt when in power, both of them fully support the currency-killing policies of the Federal Reserve, and neither major political party would get rid of the income tax and the IRS.  And that is just for starters.  Yes, there are some minor differences when it comes to taxing and spending between the two parties, but the truth is that they are a lot more similar on economic issues than they are different.  What we desperately need on the national level is a fundamental change in direction when it comes to economic policy, but we simply are not going to get that from either the Democrats or the Republicans.  That means that there is no hope that the economic storm that is coming will be averted.

So why are the Democrats and the Republicans so similar on these issues?  Well, a big reason is because of who they are trying to please.

The reality of the matter is that most politicians do not really care about what you or I have to say.  Instead, what they are really concerned about is getting as much money for their campaigns as possible so that they can keep getting elected.

When you take a close look at the results of federal elections over the past several decades, it quickly becomes apparent that the candidate that raises the most money almost always wins.

So most politicians have learned to please those that fund their campaigns so that the money will keep rolling in.

Yes, there are a few candidates that are willing to rebel against “the system”, but they are few and far between and the major parties tend to marginalize them.

Once again in 2012, political races will overwhelmingly be won by those that raise the most cash.  The following is from Politifact….

In congressional races in 2010, the candidate who spent the most won 85 percent of the House races and 83 percent of the Senate races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s a large percentage, but it’s lower than what the sign indicated.

Indeed, the percentage for 2010 was lower than it had been in recent election cycles. The center found that in 2008, the biggest spenders won 93 percent of House races and 86 percent of Senate races. In 2006, the top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. And in 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to candidates who spent the most, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

Once you understand how Washington works, it becomes easier to understand why our politicians do such stupid things.

For example, big corporations tend to donate large amounts of money to political campaigns and they love the “free trade” globalization agenda.

They love to import massive quantities of super cheap foreign goods so that they can undercut the prices of goods made in the United States.

They love to set up manufacturing facilities on the other side of the globe where it is legal to pay slave labor wages to workers.

The “free trade” agenda is great for the largest corporations, but it is horrible for the average American worker.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every $1 billion of goods that are imported from overseas.

Trade with other countries can be good as long as it is balanced.  Unfortunately, the U.S. trading relationship with the rest of the world is tremendously imbalanced.

In 2011, the United States bought more than 550 billion dollars more stuff from the rest of the world than they bought from us.

This trade deficit has enormous consequences that most Americans simply do not understand.

Over the past decade, tens of thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and trillions of dollars have left our country.

Our industrial base is being dismantled and we are rapidly becoming poorer as a nation.

According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day closed down in the United States during 2010.

Just think about that.

Every single day we lost 23 more.

Overall, America has lost a total of more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

Why do you think cities like Detroit are dying?

The truth is that we killed them with our idiotic policies.

America has a trade imbalance that is more than 5 times larger than any other nation on earth has.  We are losing wealth, jobs and businesses at a pace that is absolutely astounding.

It is neither “conservative” nor “liberal” to commit national economic suicide.

Our trade imbalance with China is particularly bad.  The U.S. spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

Does that sound fair to you?

China slaps huge tariffs on many of our products, they deeply subsidize their own national industries, the brazenly steal technology from us, and they manipulate currency rates so that their products end up being significantly cheaper than ours.

Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was nearly 300 billion dollars.  That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the world.

Yet both major political parties refuse to do anything about it.

Back in 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was only 6 million dollars for the entire year.

In 2011, our trade deficit with China was more than 49,000 times larger.

The consequences of this trade deficit with China are being felt all over the United States every single day.

For example, the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Do you support losing more than half a million manufacturing jobs a year?

If not, then you should be for “fair trade” instead of “free trade” where other nations can cheat us blind as often as they want.

The Economic Policy Institute says that since 2001 America has lost approximately 2.8 million jobs due to our trade deficit with China alone.

Do you think that the U.S. economy could use an extra 2.8 million jobs right now?

Sadly, if current trends continue things are going to get a lot worse.

According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades.

So why won’t our politicians do something?

The United States has run a trade deficit every single year since 1976.

During that time, America has had a total trade imbalance of more than 7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.

That 7.5 trillion dollars could have gone to support U.S. jobs and U.S. businesses.

Taxes could have been paid on that 7.5 trillion dollars.

Instead, it went out of the country and made foreigners wealthier.

So what is Barack Obama doing about all of this?

Well, Obama has been aggressively pushing for even more “free trade” agreements.  The Obama administration has inked deals with Panama, South Korea and Colombia and the Obama administration is making the Trans-Pacific Partnership (“the NAFTA of the Pacific“) a very high priority.

Well, Mitt Romney must be criticizing these moves, right?

No, Romney has actually criticized Obama for not pushing for more “free trade” fast enough.

Mitt Romney wants to make it even easier for jobs to go out of the country and for other countries to drain our wealth.  The following quote comes directly from the Romney campaign website….

Access to foreign markets is crucial to growing our economy. We must reassert American leadership in international negotiations, follow through on commitments we have already made, and push aggressively for advantageous new agreements.

So we are not going to see a change in direction in trade policy no matter who wins the next election.

Well, what about the national debt?

Are there differences between the two parties on this issue?

Sadly, there are only minor differences.

Both major political parties are packed with big spenders that have been spending us into oblivion.

Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the U.S. national debt has increased by $5,027,761,476,484.56.

That comes to $16,043.39 for every man, woman and child living in the United States.

What the Obama administration and the Democrats are doing to future generations is absolutely criminal.

So what about the Republicans?

Well, when the Republicans have had control of the White House they have run up debt “like a drunken sailor” as well.

If the Republican Party wants to have any credibility when it comes to fiscal issues, it needs to publicly admit that George W. Bush was a horrible failure when it came to the federal budget.

George W. Bush was a “big government” politician that dramatically increased the size of the federal government and spent money like it was going out of style.

He was not a conservative when it came to fiscal issues, and that is the truth.

Sadly, neither political party is proposing to balance the federal budget any time soon.  There are a few politicians that have suggested doing this, but they have been marginalized.

So why don’t our politicians support living within our means?

Well, the truth is that if the federal government balanced the budget today, it would result in a catastrophic drop in living standards inside the United States.  We are currently living in an era of debt-fueled “false prosperity”, and if that false prosperity were to disappear there would be riots in the streets of our major cities within months.

It is much easier for our politicians to continue to pile up more debt and to continue to kick the can down the road.

But this party cannot go on too much longer.  Already, the United States has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.

As you can see from the chart below, we are in a whole lot of trouble….

Our foolishness will catch up to us in a big way eventually.

Another area where the two major political parties agree is that they both fully support the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is supposed to keep inflation low, but the truth is that the Fed has absolutely killed the value of the U.S. dollar.  Just check out the chart below which was produced by the Fed itself.  It shows how dramatically the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has declined over the years….

Keep in mind that the chart above is using official government numbers which actually downplay how much the U.S. dollar has been debased.

If inflation was measured the exact same way that it was back in 1980, the annual rate of inflation would be more than 10 percent right now.

By any measure, the Federal Reserve has been a colossal failure for the American people.  Since the Fed was created, our currency has lost more than 95 percent of its value and our national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger.

The current Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, has a track record of failure that is legendary.  If you doubt this, just read this article, this article and this article.

But Barack Obama just loves Bernanke.  He nominated him for another term as Fed Chairman and he never criticizes anything that he does.

Thanks Obama.

So will things be any different under Mitt Romney?

Of course not.

During one Republican debate, Mitt Romney actually had the gall to try to explain to all of us why “we need to have a Fed“.

Mitt Romney says that he is “not going to take my effort and focus on the Federal Reserve“.

But the Federal Reserve is at the very heart of our economic problems.

Doesn’t Mitt Romney understand that?

The mainstream media is already telling us not to expect any significant changes at the Fed if Romney wins.  A recent Reuters article had the following headline….

“Analysis: A Romney win would likely change little at Federal Reserve”

Are you starting to understand why I am saying that there is not going to be a solution to our economic problems at the national level?

A great economic cataclysm is coming, and there is very little hope that it can be averted.

So what does that mean?

It means that we all need to start preparing to weather the coming storm on an individual level.

The nation as a whole may not change course, but as individuals and as families we can change course.

All of us can work to reduce our expenses, get out of debt, build up a six month financial cushion, learn to grow a garden and slowly become more independent of the system.

Both political parties are leading us down a road that will only end in economic disaster.

Instead of waiting for a “national solution” that is never going to come, you need to focus on being your own solution.

Time is short, so you better get ready.

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