Debt Ceiling 2013: Using Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin To Pay Off Debt Marks High Point of Stupidity

In its continuing quest to determine exactly how stupid we are, some in our government have come up with a truly idiotic plan. We know just how dimwitted it is based on a careful application of the “Paul Krugman” test. According to scrupulous statistical analysis, ideas supported by Professor Krugman are most highly correlated with the words “idiotic” and “breathtakingly stupid.”

Thanks to the lobbying efforts of the all-important numismatic caucus, the Treasury Department is permitted to issue commemorative coins without congressional approval. “So what?” you say, “what could be the matter with that?”

There is no limit to the denomination. And no need for an awkward vote on raising the debt ceiling that distracts elected officials from the solicitation of bribes.

Here is how the plan would work. At a cost of about $1,500 worth of platinum, plus some design fees and the cost of making the mold, the Treasury Department would create a coin, presumably about the size of a large pepperoni pizza, and “sell” it to the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed would, in turn, wire back $1 trillion of actual spendable money.

Poof. Political problem solved. The Congressional cowards would have no need to cut even one penny of spending nor to raise anyone’s taxes unless there was a strong desire to stick a partisan finger in somebody’s eye.

As any drug dealer will quickly tell you, this is where the beauty begins. Give the Congress a taste of free money and it will soon become addicted.

The design for the coin will already exist. It will not need to be done over again.

The mold for the coin will also exist and it will not need replacement either.

All that will be needed is the $1,500 for the platinum, surely a small price to pay for gazillions of dollars of free money.

Soon, the United States will have zero taxes and unlimited government spending as well as a congressional re-election rate of 100%.

In but a few short years, we’ll be faced with the critical decision over replacing the platinum, the value of which will be nearly infinite, with an actual pepperoni pizza, which, by then, should only cost about $15 million.