Links for July 9th

  • GAO: Replacing the $1 Note with a $1 Coin Would Provide a Financial Benefit to the Government
    Getting rid of the $1 bill would save the government $184M/year. Not an enormous amount, on the scale of the budget, but there's no getting around that $184M is a very large amount of money indeed. Ten years ago, it would have saved $522M/year, but the Treasury has improved the technology that they use to identify and destroy worn notes—it used to be overload broad, but that's fixed, allowing lots of bills to stay in circulation longer.
  • The Economist: America’s debt—Shame on them
    The Economist, a relatively staid and conservative publication, has run an editorial in which they describe Republicans' stance on the debt ceiling as "economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical." They go on to describe Republicans as "unprincipled," as not being "real tax reformers," and conclude by declaring that "the blame falls clearly on the Republicans" in debt talks. Yup.
  • PolitiFact: Allen says China owns more U.S. bonds than Americans
    It's not even close. Of $14.3T of national debt, China owns $1.2T. The U.S. government owns $6T. $3.8T is privately held. When confronted with the facts, the Allen campaign claimed that they were talking only about debt held by ordinary American investors, but the numbers that they cited to back up that claim actually proved the opposite. I hope NBC-29 runs a correction. Lord knows Allen won't admit that he's full of shit.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

5 replies on “Links for July 9th”

  1. Speaking of republicans. Has anyone seen or heard from Hurt? Is it time for his picture to go up on a milk carton?

  2. Why didn’t the George Allen claim rate a “Pants on Fire” rather than a simple “False”? It seems to have no resemblance to reality but was just a blatant lie.

  3. It is foolish to the blame on one party for our country’s debt crisis. Republicans are not alone in their “unprincipled” behavior and most rational and unbalance observers are of the same mind. Our government has some fundamental spending issues that cross party lines; our debt issues came long before the debt talks and people on both sides of the aisle seem to be happy to keep the status quo.

  4. It is foolish to the blame on one party for our country’s debt crisis.

    I don’t think anybody’s doing that. (I mean, people exist who are doing that, I just mean in this instance. :) The Economist is just describing about the debt talks, in which Congressional Republicans aren’t acting in good faith.

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