On the idea of the government sidestepping the debt ceiling by minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin instead of borrowing more to pay its debt, Paul Krugman posts:
About That Coin
Some comments I’ve seen indicate that people still think the trillion-dollar platinum coin idea was self-evidently ridiculous. Guys, you missed the memo — literally. From last month:
The Obama administration was serious enough about manufacturing a high-value platinum coin to avert a congressional fight over the debt ceiling that it had its top lawyers draw up a memo laying out the legal case for such a move, The Huffington Post learned last week.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which functions as a sort of law firm for the president and provides him and executive branch agencies with authoritative legal advice, formally weighed in on the platinum coin option sometime since Obama took office, according to OLC’s recent response to HuffPost’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. While the letter acknowledged the existence of memos on the platinum coin option, OLC officials determined they were “not appropriate for discretionary release.”
A bad idea? Maybe — Obama and company seem to have successfully played chicken on this issue. But ridiculous, no — it was seriously considered as an option.
Because we all know that it is totally implausible that government officials would ever seriously consider anything that was ridiculous! Obviously, anything that the bureaucrats and their government lawyers might actually consider doing by definition could only be sane and reasonable. I mean, come on, get with the program, guys!
LOL.
