ARIZONA CONGRESSMAN INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO ELIMINATE DOLLAR BILL

Everyone likes the sound of a little jingle in their pocket, unless, that is, the metallic clinking comes from one of the growing list of $1 coins minted in recent history.

You know. The money so many Americans have come to hate. The Susan B. Anthony. How about the gold-tinted Sacagawea? Or the presidential or Native American coins that replaced them, and still are being minted?

That lack of love aside, a first-term Arizona Republican congressman thinks he can persuade Americans to do what prior efforts have not: scrap their dollar bills in favor of coins.

Rep. David Schweikert is not relying on Americans changing their habits and voluntarily trading in their bills for dollar coins. His legislation would force people to give up the greenbacks. He said he does not intend to make the same mistake as one former member of the state's congressional delegation.

It was Rep. Jim Kolbe who, in 1997, pushed through a measure to replace the wildly unpopular Susan B. Anthony dollar with what became the Sacagawea coin.

But as Kolbe later conceded, the bill he was able to get through Congress had a shortcoming: It allowed the government to keep printing dollar bills. And as long as those bills remain available, the public has shown little interest in replacing them with chunks of metal.

Schweikert's legislation would require Federal Reserve banks to stop issuing dollar bills when the circulation of dollar coins exceeds 600 million a year, but no later than four years after the measure becomes law.

To read the complete article, see: Deep-six the $1 bill, use coins instead, Rep. Schweikert urges (azstarnet.com/news/local/article_9e8a63e2-56c9-5554-a949-9b25f8c9740e.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web