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Thursday, January 03, 2013

Put MLK's Face on the Platinum Trillion Dollar Coin!

Many on the left have pointed out that an appropriately idiotic circumvention of the Republican threat to take their own country (and hence, themselves) hostage over the debt-ceiling would be the Democratic counter-threat of having Obama mint trillion-dollar platinum coins to effectively pay the bills whatever the ceiling is, then issue Treasury bonds to buy back the coins to stave off any inflationary freakout resulting from the stunt. The sugar that sweetens this particular tea-bag (yes, the figure is deliberate, my friends) is that Obama would then support a law to disallow the stunt is Congress paid the price a concomitant disallowal of these shenanigans over the debt ceiling altogether.

Sweeter still, we could just not and say that we did: That is to say, Republicans could stop threatening to destroy the world with this completely unprecedentedly irresponsible tactic and behave a little more like adults from here on out, to the benefit of the country and to the prospects of long-term survival even of the party coo-coo bananas enough to contemplate the short-term "advantages" (mostly involving weird dreams of dismantling civilization) they think they might get from these threats.

Always ahead of the curve, Atrios has started the debate over the urgent issue of deciding what the platinum coins should look like, since all sensible people already agree that the coins must be minted. He has proposed that we put Ronald Reagan's face on the platinum coins, just to infuriate the wingnuts, but I want to give them no occasion for retro-active rationalizations that Saint Ronnie saved Murka from the Liebrul Deficit, and think they would be all the more infuriated if we put the face of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the most valuable currency in the land.

I am reminded of these words from Dr. King's great "I Have A Dream" address:
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
Apt enough? Let us fund the responsible ongoing effort of democratic government to approach the ideal of equity-in-diversity however the neo-feudal neo-Confederates howl! I vote for MLK on the trillion dollar coin!

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