Despite the fact that the American public seems to be pretty anti-dollar coin in the coin vs. bill debate, Congress is still fighting to push the $1 coin on the country, almost a year after the debate first began. We say fight, because as history has shown, the general population doesn’t mind chucking dollar coins in a jar but is definitely against waving goodbye to paper $1 bills forever.

At a hearing of the House Financial Services subcommittee yesterday, Congress again bandied about the idea of slowly getting ri d of paper dollars in favor of the coins, reports NBCNews. Proponents say it’ll save the government about $4.4 billion over 30 years, while critics have only to point to the $1.4 billion in one-dollar coins sitting in the Federal Reserve because no one wants to play with them.

The Government Accountability Office — which has produced several reports over the years suggesting the switch — testified in favor of the coins, solidifying its earlier stance that the government should gradually phase out the dollar bill over four years.

Which would mean that we’d basically have no choice but to use coins in four years’ time, those shiny bits of metal currently sitting in glass jars on shelves all across America. They’ve been around in one iteration or another since the 1700s, but never really caught on.

Proponents say dollar coins make sense (or cents! Ha! Get it?) because they’re more durable than paper money and don’t cost more than they’re worth to produce, unlike their less-loved brethren, the penny.

The GAO admits its proposal is “controversial” and told the government it should shell out $8 million to convince people that they don’t actually hate dollar coins. A move that would seem to undermine the idea of saving money, no?

Today feels like a poll-y day, so let’s take a crack at this one more time (at least):

Kill bill? US says dollar coins would save $4.4B [NBCNews]

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