Could it be that Congress will finally get around to doing something that is long overdue? No, I'm not talking about balancing the budget, but I am talking about money. In this case it's the dollar bill, or rather doing away with the dollar bill.
One more than a few occasions I have lamented the waste of taxpayer money in efforts to replace the dollar bill with a dollar coin. One of the biggest advantages to the coin is that it lasts up to 30 times longer than a bill. Despite the coin's higher cost to produce, about twice that of a dollar bill, it's longer life in circulation more than offsets the higher initial cost.
But the Treasury's attempts to replace the bill with a coin have failed more than once, with the biggest failure being the Susan B. Anthony coin due to its easily being mistaken for a quarter.
The Sacagawea was the next attempt, a gold colored coin with smooth edges, slightly larger than a quarter. It was popular when it first came out, but with the reluctance of Congress to kill off the dollar bill, billions of them soon languished in bank vaults, unused.
The last attempt was the so-called Presidential series, again gold colored smooth-edged coins the same size as the Sacagawea dollar. And again Congress' reluctance to do away with the dollar bill doomed it, too.
But now it looks like Congress will finally kill the bill and make the coin the “coin of the realm” and stop wasting the taxpayer's money on money no one wants.
