The fight over whether or not the dollar should be printed or minted continues. The latest volley of cannon fire in favor of the dollar coin came from Senators Tom Harkin of Iowa and Arizona’s John McCain, who earlier today introduced the Currency Optimization, Innovation, and National Savings (Hey — that spells COINS!) Act to promote the use of coins in an effort to curb waste and spending.
The senators cite the multiple Government Accountability Office reports over the last two decades — including this most recent one from March 2011 — that demonstrate a large, long-term savings by phasing out printed money and rolling out more durable coins.
“With our Nation’s debt now over $15 trillion, Congress must look at every area of the federal government, big or small, to save money,” said McCain. “By moving from the costly dollar bill to the dollar coin, we can save real money and show the American taxpayer that we are serious about cutting spending in Washington.”
While much of the modernized world is fine with coin currency, the dollar coin is a controversial item here in the U.S., with detractors pointing at the many, many failed attempts to introduce dollar coins into the mainstream currency. A recent report claims that around 40% of all dollar coins make their way back to the treasury vaults because people want to get rid of them quickly.
But supporters of the dollar coin say that those previous failures happened because there was never any wholehearted attempt to actually replace paper money and that the coins have always been treated as curiosities. If you simply take away paper money and replace it with coins, say supporters of the dollar coin movement, people will quickly get used to the idea.
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You know, I burn through a $20 bill so quick. I think if they took away the $1 bill I wouldn’t even notice. I usually pay with 5′s, 10′s or 20′s anyway cause it’s a lot quicker than counting out a bunch of 1′s. It seems like the simple solution would be to stop printing the $1 bill, and replace that with the $2 bill. With all the inflation nowadays a $1 bill is practically worthless, and a $2 bill isn’t far behind.
We need to come to grips with the fact that the dollar has fallen in value over the decades. Today’s dollar bill has the purchasing power that a nickel had when the first paper dollars came out during the Civil War. While we did have fractional currency at the time in denominations all the way down the three cents, it was in response to coin hoarding. Once coins began circulating again, the smallest piece of currency was again the dollar bill, which was worth 1/20 of an ounce of gold.
Right now, our money has been devalued and we are in denial about it. The result is that we have the money a Third World country would have. I generally don’t like imitating the Europeans, but they are way ahead of us here. There’s no euro note smaller than a five, which is worth $8 or so.
We need to do it right, without putting some dour feminist or obscure Indian girl on it. Put someone popular on it, who a good chunk of the population will get behind. Think Ronald Reagan or Martin Luther King. Get rid of every coin smaller than a quarter, too, or at the very least, get rid of cents and nickels.
It’s very easy to force people to using dollar coins instead of dollar bills.
Stop printing the damn things!
That WILL force people to use them.
The last few dollar coins in part have failed because they were too much like quarters in feel. They need to be like the old silver dollars or more like asian coins with the hole in the middle so it’s simple to tell the coin apart from feel alone.
Though I am loathe to agree with John McCain from the wild west state of Arizona he does have a point. Our neighbours to the north have been using dollar coins “loonies” for many years now and even have a two dollar coin the “twonie” and Canada has not crumbled. We’re about the only country that has a single unit of paper currency. The reason people have not taken to it is because if you keep printing paper currency there’s no reason to use anything else. They need to withdraw the $1 bill. People will adjust. You just need to get rid of the paper currency and it will work.
It like some others have said. You create a law that says all paper $1 bills have to bed turned in for destruction. From that point make a 1 dollar coin. People and machines will adapt. End of story.
I wouldn’t have a problem with using a dollar coin… if they made a decent one. I like the UK’s ¬£1 coins – small, but thick… like a really thick nickel. Even if you’ve only been in the UK for a few hours, it’s easy to reach in your pocket and feel for a ¬£1 coin.
But if that’s off the table, can we at least go to polymer notes?
The only reason previous dollar coins failed is because the government kept printing dollar bills. The ONLY way the coin will be accepted is if the bill is phased out quickly. The US currency has the lowest denomination bill ($1) in the world. It’s about time we saved some money by moving to the dollar coin instead.
One principal obstacle in the past wsa the vending machine lobby (yes, there is one of those). They fought dollar coins because they didn’t want the expense of changing their machines. Funny, though, how quickly they are changing machines to accept credit cards!
I just wish Congress would be as effective with legislation as they are with coming up with “cute” acronums for their acts.
I think these might save me money actually; have you ever tried to get your hand into your blue jeans pocket while you’re sitting? It would make a drive through window almost impossible to use; unless you get your wallet out and use a larger bill.
Okay, so…every single other country in the world uses dollar coins. Stop being so arrogant as to think that the paper dollar is sooo much better that we, as Americans, can’t get used to having coins in our pockets. Every other country has figured out how to handle having dollar coins, I’m certain we can live with it. Hell, if you live in California, you already do. They push the dollar coin HARD there. Aren’t there other, more important, things to worry and get angry about?
Here’s how to do it. Three steps.
1.) Make a decent dollar coin that can’t be confused with a quarter but also isn’t enormous.
2.) Stop printing dollar bills.
3.) Adapt vending machines to accept dollar coins.
DONE.
So…1 and 3 are already done. Two out of three ain’t bad!
I always feel like I’m coming out of the dungeon with riches whenever I get a lot of dollah coins. I love that.
Legislation has never been a particularly effective method of changing public opinion or preferences. I believe that much of the resistance to the current dollar coins lies in the design; they are too close in size to a quarter. There needs to be some correlation between size and valuation. Retrofitting vending machines is another issue.
There are coins and there are bills. The place to make the switch is arbitrary. The current break at the $1 level is rooted in the simple history of what has been the case for years and years.
Having a denomination that is both coin and bill is a problem. Inertia will tend to resist a transition from one to the other.
The value of $1 was much higher years ago. Dollar coins COULD work if only people could make the switch. It is the transition that is awkward.
Also, coins don’t need to be round. They can be, say, hexagonal with rounded corners. Or even oval. This would stop the rolling away issue.
It is really simple make a hexagon coin that does not look like a quarter and quit printing the one dollar bills….
1. They need to phase out the penny and nickel.
2. They need to include sales tax in all prices so you know in advance how much you’re paying (this will make people use coins rather than just put them in a jar, because they know how much they’re paying before they are expected to pay)
3. They need to design dollar coins that do not in any way resemble quarters. Make them small like dimes, but 3 times as thick and with pronounced edge ridges that have a texture. They will be light, unique, and easy to use. And put Lincoln on ‘em so Illinois won’t block the bill.
I agree. Americans need to make a real effort to do it, such as actually abolishing the bill, in order to get it adopted.
And this is a good time to ditch the worthless penny and nickel as well. If you’re going to change the system, might as well give it a long-needed overhaul.
They’re less of a novelty than 2 dollar bills, but twice as useless as them.
Perhaps if the coins were not the same size as quarters… Or a differemt shape…
Just give America the choice… Lose the paper dollar or lose the penny.
Fives would just become the new ones with dollar coins piling up on the dresser with pennies, nickles, dimes, the occasional half dollar, etc.
Just stop making paper dollars and introduce coins to replace the damaged ones.
This is a huge fuss over nothing.
Several countries use coins. Canada uses 2$ coins and 1$ ones, and had no issues implementing them.
Flamebait, I know, but it’s a day after the post, so no one is going to see this anyway:
I don’t use the dollar coins because they don’t print “In God We Trust” on the face of the coin, but rather on the side, where it is intentionally less prominent and more likely to wear off.
Flamebait, I know, but it’s a day after the post, so no one is going to see this anyway:
I don’t use the dollar coins because they don’t print “In God We Trust” on the face of the coin, but rather on the side, where it is intentionally less prominent and more likely to wear off.
This isn’t nearly as much of an issue as the penny. GET RID OF THE PENNY -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U