Petition: "Commemorate President Lincoln's Assassination with 1 Billion Debt-Free Lincoln $5 Bills"
Ending date: December 31, 2015 05:00:00
How to Handle Results? Forward to Petition Submitter for Delivery
Recipients:
United States Congress
United States Senate
United States President
Subject of Letter to Recipient: Commemorate President Lincoln's Assassination with 1 Billion Debt-Free Lincoln $
Letter to Recipient:
To honor President Lincoln on the 150th anniversary of his
assassination, let's issue one billion $5 commemorative United States
Notes. The original United States Notes were issued by president
Lincoln in 1862-1863 and totaled $450 million, or 40% of the Northern
currency at the peak of the Civil War. With Congress' cooperation,
President Lincoln was able to take this emergency measure because the
constitution's coinage clause in Article 1, Section 8 allowed Congress
to "coin Money."
Why one billion in $5 U.S. Notes?
1. $5 Billion is roughly consistent with the annual production of $5
currency currently:
https://explore.data.gov/Economic/Annual-Production-Figures-of-United-States-Currenc/ym8u-jtw3
2. $5 Billion is roughly consistent with other “Commemorative Moneyâ€
Bills, such as HR2535 from Rep. Andy Barr calling for $3 Billion in
commemorative coins: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2535 Today, $5 billion in new United States Notes would be immediately
accretive to the Federal account through Seigniorage (the face value of
money, minus its production cost). This money would go into general
circulation for the benefit of We The People, just as Lincoln intended
with the original issuance of the first Greenbacks. It would not effect
the amount of $5 Federal Reserve Notes issued and the United States
Notes would circulate on par with Federal Reserve Notes, fully usable
for all domestic private and public debts and taxes (there are
long-standing exceptions that disallow U.S. Notes to be used to pay
foreign debts or to pay off the government’s debt).
This is money that does not have to be raised through taxes or borrowed,
just like coins. It is money that the Treasury is allowed to produce,
and has produced from 1862 – 1971, as our nation’s longest-lasting
currency.
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Scott Baker is a Managing Editor & The Economics Editor at Opednews, and a former blogger for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Global Economic Intersection.
His anthology of updated Opednews articles "America is Not Broke" was published by Tayen Lane Publishing (March, 2015) and may be found here:
http://www.americaisnotbroke.net/
Scott is a former and current President of Common Ground-NY (http://commongroundnyc.org/), a Geoist/Georgist activist group. He has written dozens of (more...)
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