What if a Platinum Coin?

What if the Treasury minted the platinum coin people have talked about, with a denomination of $1Trillion?

What would happen?

There would be much whining within the monopoly media that Obama had become a dictator: he's taken away Congress's power of the purse, the debt ceiling.

Obama could also simply declare, according to the 14th Amendment, that the President has to defend the "full faith and credit of the United States," by continuing to borrow whenever necessary, even if the Congress refused to pass an increased debt ceiling. That's a better alternative.

In either case, the Executive does have the power to maintain the currency. A strong case could be made: a President's first responsibility is to defend the nation, whether it derives from foreign military threats, or domestic economic ones. A default on the US dollar is a much greater threat than any of our last half-century's wars.

A default would probably spell the death knell for the greenback as the world's reserve currency. Interest rates could go sky high, stopping all growth; imports would become prohibitively expensive: a recipe for severe stagflation. Global depression could follow.

Yet, our powerful finance industry isn't leaning on the GOP to quash its debt-ceiling extortion. But then, Wall Street would dearly love to achieve some of the GOP's agenda: especially, privatizing Social Security (which doesn't contribute to the deficit), so maybe it won't press Republicans to stop, unless it looks as if Obama won't blink.

That's one reason why either the platinum coin or Presidential declaration, make sense. Either would stop the hostage taking. Then, if both sides still wanted to talk about deficit/debt reduction, they could have a rational discussion of corporate subsidies, of sensible cuts to the war machine, of reforms to health care and Medicare/Medicaid, by cutting costs without reducing benefits or raising eligibility.

Without the above Presidential action, negotiations would remain irrational: under duress on both sides. Just as in the fiscal cliff negotiation, corrupt deals under the table would pollute the actual bargain ("great" or not), in the rush to meet--or almost meet--the deadline. Reasonable solutions, like restructuring payment mechanisms in Medicare, (as is being tried in New York City hospitals), would be impossible to negotiate.

Wall Street, the GOP, and some Wall Street Democrats, wouldn't like either presidential response, because they'd have a harder time extorting their loopholes, gifts and grants. Conservatives would also bemoan the expansion of Presidential power--not that they opposed it under Bush II.

But maybe the US would finally get a government that governed more or less rationally, for The People.

What are the odds, if our Roman Senators don't get what they want, that the President would even try to get what the nation needs? Where is a backbone when backbone is needed? The selfish class has to be stopped. It would be ironic if a mere coin could do that.

US House: No One In Charge

Never raise taxes!

The GOP caucus in the House of Representatives will only be mollified if taxes on the wealthy are cut even more. Further, to reduce Government debt, they demand most cuts to the budget have to come from non-Defense spending, especially programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and food stamps (SNAP) that benefit the middle class and poor, but are unnecessary to the wealthy.

No one seems to be in charge in the House. Speaker Boehner's odious "Plan B," which would have been unacceptable to Democrats and the President, was an attempt to mollify the right-wing extremists in the GOP; still, it didn't pass Boehner's own caucus: it raised taxes on millionaires.

No one is in charge. The President's re-election, an increase in the Democratic minority in the House and of its majority in the Senate, makes no difference within the Republican caucus. This is because the House majority won convincingly in their gerrymandered districts (drawn by state majorities won in the Republican landslide of 2010). Despite receiving fewer votes overall than Democratic Congressional candidates, GOP Congressmen fear, not Democrats--their districts were drawn to be majority Republican--but members of their own party "primarying" them from the right, if they don't follow an extreme right-wing agenda. That means cutting taxes on the wealthy and sticking it to the people Romney tried to stigmatize as the dependent 47% (more like 52%).

The House majority of a majority therefore refuses to compromise, because they'd lose next time round to right-wing challengers if they did. A more moderate majority--of Democrats and pragmatic Republicans--might exist in the House, in theory. However, the majority's leadership controls the House's business, and it's likely that Boehner would block a pragmatic bipartisan majority's proposals from a vote--unless he's willing to risk his Speakership for real statesmanship. That's unlikely.

Therefore, an ideological minority (the House GOP caucus majority) refuses, as of 12/20/12, to allow any tax increases on the wealthy and won't back down from demanding large cuts to social programs, either. So, we could start sliding down the fiscal slope.

Radical Republicans appear truly determined to replay what happened in the Roman Senate in 476, when Roman Senators refused to raise taxes on themselves, and preferred to allow the takeover of the German (Ostrogothic) palace guard. That precipitated the Fall of Rome.

In 2013, taxes will automatically go up--for everyone. Then, if Republicans don't agree to cut taxes on everyone but the wealthy, they will probably cause a renewed recession. Yet, they were the ones who demanded this so-called "fiscal cliff" to cut the debt. Under that default plan, there would be more cuts to the Pentagon than to domestic spending, and entitlements wouldn't be touched. That's why I hope there isn't a bipartisan "grand bargain," except on the above tax "cuts."

Either Republicans have slashed their own throats, or everyone else's as well: welcome to European-style austerity and recession.