House Republicans think they've stumbled upon political gold'and as usual, they seem to think the prospect of Democrats trying to clean up another GOP fiasco is the punchline to a hilarious joke:
Actually, the coin wouldn't "spend" a single dime. It would simply let the United States pay its bills'bills authorized by Congress'if House Republicans refuse to increase the debt limit. Republicans are so excited about the political possibilities of the trillion dollar coin that they claim to be targeting seven House Democrats with coin-themed attacks. But based on the fact that one of those targets is Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) who won with 70 percent of the vote in 2012, it's pretty obvious Republicans aren't actually serious about using the trillion dollar coin as an issue against individual members. Instead, they think they've stumbled into an opportunity to mock Democrats for being associated with an idea that at first sounds a little odd. The idea is this: If House Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit, the treasury secretary should use his legal authority (authority that was provided to him by a Republican Congress) to mint a trillion dollar coin and deposit it at the Federal Reserve, thereby enabling the government to continue paying its bills despite the House GOP's obstruction. Once Congress got its act together and raised the debt limit, the coin would be melted, but until then, it would allow the government to continue paying its bills as required by law. This would certainly qualify as an extraordinary measure, but as Republicans themselves are implicitly conceding, it's perfectly legal. And compared to the alternative'going into default and setting off a global economic crisis'it's a no brainer.
We'll probably never face that choice because Republicans are already signaling that their debt limit gambit is a bluff, but in the event that we do, there's going to be a lot of Republicans secretly rooting for the president to mint that coin.
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