Posted on 08/21/2010 7:17:45 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Today, the U.S. Treasury released a $1 coin commemorating former President James Buchanan. And people aren't happy about it.
To understand why, some background is helpful. In 2007, thanks to a bill promoted by then-Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire, the Treasury began minting $1 coins with the likenesses of former Presidents, starting with George Washington.
The coins -- which have been appearing ever since, featuring a new President every three months -- are meant to improve use and circulation of America's dollar coins, which are often seen as an awkward misfit among currency, neither fish nor fowl.
Sununu's initiative drew inspiration from the 50 State Quarters Program, which launched in 1999. The runaway success of that effort, according to his legislation, "shows that a design on a U.S. circulating coin that is regularly changed... radically increases demand for the coin, rapidly pulling it through the economy."
The bill also suggested that a program wherein Presidents are featured on a succession of $1 coins, and First Spouses commemorated on gold $10 coins, could help correct a state of affairs where "many people cannot name all of the Presidents, and fewer can name the spouses, nor can many people accurately place each President in the proper time period of American history."
So the bill passed, and the Washington dollar coin appeared not long after. It was followed by Adams, Jefferson, et al., with the First Spouse coins minted alongside.
Now we're up to Buchanan, the fifteenth President, who took office in 1857 and turned things over to Abraham Lincoln in 1861, and whose coin (produced at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints and purchasable through the U.S. Mint website) has occasioned the aforementioned grousing. Here's where some feel the coin program is falling short:
1. The coins aren't circulating.
Many Americans have never gotten into the habit of using $1 coins, and as a result, over a billion commemorative Presidential coins are sitting around in a stockpile at the Federal Reserve. As BBC News reports, if these coins were stacked up and laid on their side, they'd stretch for 1,367 miles, or the distance from Chicago to New Mexico.
2. They don't seem to be educating people, either.
In February 2008, a year after the first presidential coins were minted, The New York Times reported that a survey had found large numbers of American teens to be woefully ignorant of their country's history. It was far from the first time Americans had gotten a dismal grade in history, suggesting that Sununu's commemorative-coin campaign isn't having much of an effect in that arena, either.
3. James Buchanan was kind of a crappy president.
In fairness, this is a grievance with a specific president, not the presidential coins program as a whole. Still, it seems to come up in all the coverage of the new coin: Buchanan wasn't very good at his job.
That's the consensus of historians, anyway, who have traditionally censured Buchanan for his failure to prevent the Civil War. Last year, a C-SPAN survey of historians granted Buchanan the dubious distinction of worst president ever.
Still, all of this isn't reason enough to declare the commemorative-coins program a total failure. If more coin collectors start avidly pursuing the presidential coins, it could have the effect of pushing down the national debt, thanks to the way the value of the coins fluctuates with their availability. And if the dollar coins were to catch on and replace paper $1 bills entirely, it could save the country between $500 and $700 million each year in printing costs.
Plus, if things stay on track, 2012 will see the release of the Chester A. Arthur dollar coin -- marking the first time that long non-commemorated president's face has ever appeared on any nation's currency. And who are we to deprive him of that?
Absolutely.
Self defeating; the more you post the more we post. Can't give it up can you? Would it be so bad if ALL conservatives wanted to restore the republic by any means possible, INCLUDING SECESSION? Are you that afraid that it might be an idea that time has come, again?
Ironically, the state with the strongest Secession movement currently, and the one with the strongest claim to it's own sovereignty (imo) is...Vermont.
It's culturally OK for them, since they are above the Mason-Dixon giving them the "right" and credibility.
good point.
And next might be Hawaii too.
good point.
And next might be Hawaii too.
you can have the flag. It’s a part of history after all.
you don’t restore something by destroying it.
The CSA didn't destroy anything, the USA destroyed the CSA. The 11 states the left the union created their own country, nothing was destroyed. You keep it up, I don't need to call you a fascist, you do that to yourself with every post. Come on keep it up.
Where did I say the CSA? You are not and will never be the CSA.
Ok, forge the CSA example. If Texas became independent, what exactly gets destroyed in that process? Your ego?
nope. your credibility. they will have actually done something and you;ll still be whining about Sherman on FR.
But very true. Your culture was narrowly defined in 1860 and I don't see you guys broadening it much 150 years later. Any one that doesn't walk like you, believe like you, worship like you, or act like you has no place in your Dixie 2.0. And will be removed one way or another. You all make it clear all the time.
But O'Donnell is an intolerant blowhard who wants everyone to believe and act and speak exactly like she does. Spitting image of you.
Says the biggest lying POS on the forum. Well if anyone is an expert at lying POS's then it would have to be you. You've had so much experience with it.
The CSA destroyed itself. It committed suicide by launching a war it was not prepared to win.
Would I like to live in a country of like minded people who believe in the republic and want little or no govt. interference. Yes. Does race have anything to do with it? No, not IMO. You appear to see everything thru race colored lenses, perhaps there is a reason for that; would you like to tell the group something?
"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form."
-- Jefferson Davis First Pres. CSA
You go deeper than that. Your latest pejorative is Irish immigrants. As in "running out of Irish conscripts and needed fresh meat for his cleaver." Or "An army made up of drunken Irishmen can't be faulted to much when so poorly officered." And why should that be surprising to anyone? Your Southern Society of 1860 had no use for immigrants of any kind from virtually any country except one or two Western European ones. The True Southerner was an Anglo-Saxon Protestant, period. And 150 years later you still use immigrants as an insult. And select Anglo-Saxons at that. Would you exclude based on race? I'm sure you believe that you wouldn't. But anyone else, any immigrant or anyone with funny religious ideas or an accent, has no place in your Dixie. Anyone who doesn't sound like you, believe like you, think and act like you, worship like you and hate like you would have no future in your Dixe rerun. Why not man up and admit it?
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