The $1 bill: Why it might be phased out

A new cost-saving idea is “gaining currency” in Washington, said Gregory Korte in USA Today. It’s a proposal to replace the dollar bill with a coin. The congressional supercommittee set up to reduce the national debt is considering phasing out the one-buck note as a means to save $5.6 billion over 30 years. Paper dollars wear out after around three years and must be constantly replaced, while coins “theoretically last forever.” But traditionalists say the dollar bill—bearing George Washington’s face—is a treasured American icon, and that any savings would be “minuscule.” We’ve tried $1 coins before, said the Daytona Beach, Fla., News-Journal in an editorial, and both the Susan B. Anthony (1979) and the Sacagawea (2000) flopped. “Americans like the $1 bill.” Dollar coins are heavy, they’re irritating, and they’re impractical. Imagine the poor “waiter or waitress who gets 30 $1 tips in one night” trying to lug their wages home.

They’d get used to it, said the Wisconsin State Journal. In most other Western nations, the equivalent of $1 coins are part of everyday life. And while the savings here would not be enough to “balance the federal budget or pay down America’s enormous debt,” killing the paper dollar would be a symbolic way to create momentum for bigger cuts. After all, “you have to start somewhere.” And while we’re at it, said the Los Angeles Times, let’s scrap the penny as well. The U.S. Treasury loses around $70 million a year minting the “copper-clad anachronism,” since it costs 2 cents to make each one. We could just as easily round up to the nearest nickel. Nostalgia is not a good reason to keep costly, outdated forms of currency around.

Getting rid of the paper dollar might seem like a “no-brainer,” said The Washington Post, but it has already generated fierce opposition and controversy. What a perfect illustration “of how difficult it is to reduce any federal expense, no matter how modest.” On the pro-coin side, you have steelworkers’ unions and metal-mining industry groups. On the other, you have paper and ink manufacturers, and groups like the National Armored Car Association, which claims that “hauling heavy coins would increase fuel costs.” When even this “relatively minor issue” is subject to intense special-interest lobbying, the chances of Congress reaching an agreement on “big stuff” like Medicare, Social Security, and defense seem smaller than ever.

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