House Seeks to Replace Dollar With Gold Coin

Posted by Cori O'Donnell - Thursday, September 29th, 2011
Republican House members have proposed a bill that would replace the one-dollar bill with a dollar coin, ultimately saving taxpayers money.
David Schweikert (R-AZ),  Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and another House Republican proposed the bill titled the Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act.
The House members say the U.S. would save $184 million a year just by switching to the use of the coin. According to Newsmax.com, “Schweikert said his proposal would save taxpayers billions of dollars over the next few decades by switching to a dollar coin in four years, or as soon as $600 million worth of dollar coins have entered the money supply. A whopping 3 billion paper dollars are shredded every year, and continuing destruction and construction of the paper dollars costs the government too much, he said.”
Utah is already ahead of the game. We told you in a previous article that the state is allowing its citizens to use gold and silver coins as currency. Utah residents are allowed to store their gold and silver in a vault and use a “debit-like card” to make transactions.
Not everyone is in agreement with this proposal. Massachusetts Senators Scott Brown (R) and John Kerry (D) have proposed an opposing bill, the Currency Efficient Act, which they claim is to protect the paper dollar bill.
Brown argues "The one dollar coin is misleading because it costs taxpayers so much more. In fact, we have over $1 billion worth of extra one-dollar coins sitting idle in vaults and that's set to double over the next several years.”
Are Brown and Kerry really that concerned about the paper dollar bill, or is their another motive behind their proposed act?
The Dollar Coin Alliance claims the two senators are trying to protect Crane&Co., a business in their home state of Massachusetts that supplies the paper used to create dollar bills. 
Keeping the dollar bill around will only cost U.S. taxpayers even more money.
"At a time when the government needs to be looking to save every dollar, we can't continue to play the same Washington game of serving narrow special interests with half-measure legislation,” said former Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe, the honorary chair of the Dollar Coin Alliance.
The Federal Reserve says that a 2008 Harris poll found three fourths of people prefer the $1 note, but with America’s struggling economy a savings of $184 million a year in taxes can go a long way.