More Battles Ahead

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/opinion/dereliction-of-duty-more-fiscal-battles-ahead.html


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:30 AM
Subject: re: More Battles Ahead
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
     One must seriously misread our constitution to conclude that
"[l]etting the Treasury run out of borrowing authority would mean a
default on the nation’s credit".  Our constitution grants congress the
sole power not only to borrow money but to coin money. Although the
big bankers--who were accustomed to turning a profit on war
financing--didn't like it, the Union paid for our Civil War by
printing paper money and we can do so again. Rather it is the current
arrangement, in which the U.S. mint prints money, gives it the the Fed
and then borrows it back that requires an explanation.
Barry Haskell Levine