Filibuster Debate Contest ~ Round One

[Texsox]

Please read the debate thread before responding. Only two people will have a chance to respond. Those two people will each have four posts total to state their case. After they are finished a poll will be started to pick a winner.

 

The first post will be a simple statement that you are going to debate the issues and which side you will take. You will have three additional posts to state your case.

 

Again only two people will be allowed to debate this topic. The first person to respond will have their choice of sides, the other poster will have to take the opposite. There will be three more topics coming.

 

Should We Kill The Dollar Bill? http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/04/19/...the-dollar-bill

Robert Benincasa/NPR

Our story begins last month inside a busy Washington, D.C. subway station plastered with posters of giant dollar bills. One of them says: "Tell Congress to stop wasting time trying to eliminate the dollar bill." Another asks: "Do you heart the dollar?"

 

Political fights in the nation's capital normally involve billions or even trillions, not single dollars. What's going on here?

 

This being Washington, there's a back story. The $70,000 ad blitz was part of a small lobbying war over the fate of the dollar bill. On one side, leading a legislative charge to eliminate the dollar bill and replace it with a dollar coin, are Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and John McCain, R-Ariz.

 

"The most important thing is it's just more efficient. It's way more efficient than a paper dollar," Harkin says. "Canada has a coin that's worth $2 ... Switzerland has one worth about $5... And yet, what have we got? We got a 25-cent piece."

 

 

It's worth noting that Harkin and McCain both represent states that are home to businesses that profit from the production of dollar coins.

 

In Harkin's case, it's PMX Industries Inc., of Cedar Rapids. The company provides metal sheets the U.S. Mint uses to make coins. Harkin says he was pro-coin before PMX was doing business with the U.S. Mint, and so comes to the issue "with clean hands."

 

McCain's state, Arizona, has the nation's most productive copper mines, and dollar coins are made mostly of copper. McCain declined NPR's request for an interview for this story.

 

On one level, the logic is persuasive. Coins last longer, so they might make a better choice for supplying the country with pocket money. But coins also cost more to make.

 

But when you do the math, the situation is more complicated.

 

To be fair, the people making the case for the paper dollar also have something at stake. Paper advocates include Crane & Co., which has been making the paper for U.S. bills since 1879. The firm started Americans for George, which is responsible for that subway ad campaign.

 

"U.S. currency: It's some of the most durable banknotes on the planet," says company vice president Douglas Crane, "And the one-dollar bill is probably the hardest-working note there is.

 

Now a coin-versus-bill cage match is on. Harkin's bill would require Federal Reserve banks to stop putting $1 bills into circulation in as little as four years.

[Steve9347]

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