Just Say No To The Platinum Coin

While the White House remains mum about it, the rather bizarre idea of solving the debt ceiling crisis, even just temporarily, by minting a trillion dollar platinum coin continues to get much attention out in the media. With the exception of Kevin Drum, pretty much every major pundit and economics writer on the left seems to be in favor of the idea, while the right largely rejects the idea as a gimmick. In all honesty, I don’t think anyone expects President Obama to go down this road, but many people seem to be suggesting that the threat of doing so would potentially be something that would force the House GOP to act on the debt ceiling rather than taking the hard line of demanding commensurate spending cuts for every increase in the debt ceiling. Given the utter absurdity of the idea, though, I can’t see how that would actually work. Just as President Obama thinks that he can call the GOP’s bluff because, in the end, they’ll be afraid to actually let the economy hit the debt ceiling limit, it seems rather clear that the GOP would think that they can call Obama’s bluff by daring him to take a step that, in all likelihood he will not take.

Read more: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/just-say-no-to-the-platinum-coin/