Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="National dealer, post: 10769, member: 487"]More interesting reading. HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE OF DELAWAREIN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESTUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2004 Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the ``Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2004.'' When it is approved, it will create enormous opportunities to educate both children and adults about the history of this country. This legislation is the type we rarely have the opportunity to pass in Congress, and although it is not the goal of the program, it will likely earn the government as much as five billion dollars. In many ways, this legislation is modeled after the wildly successful ``50-State Quarter Program'' which I authored and Congress passed and which at the end of last year reached its halfway point. We all know the story: five quarters a year bear images connected with one of the states, so that over a decade each state will have been honored. We all know how popular the program was: before the state quarter program started, the U.S. Mint was making about 400 million quarters a year, but by the next year it was making about 1.2 billion quarters. The Mint estimates that one person in each household is collecting the quarters and they are collecting a full set. According to the most recent numbers from the Mint, about $4 billion worth of savings has been created for the federal government with an expected $2 billion more through the life of the program. The program I am introducing today adopts the same model, but uses the one-dollar gold coin introduced in 2000. For a number of reasons, that coin never achieved its promise of being a useful niche product for use in vending machines, transit systems and low-dollar-value transactions. This bill seeks to address each of the ills that befell the one-dollar coin. Mr. Speaker, this legislation addresses all of the problems to the circulation of the dollar coin that were identified in an exhaustive General Accounting Office study of a year or so ago. Merchants said the coin wasn't available in useful quantities, and collectors and consumers often had a hard time finding the coin--if they could find it at all. Others said they would use it in commerce, but never got it as change. The cost of counting and handling currency is much higher than the cost of counting and handling change, Mr. Speaker, and for those sectors of the economy that rely on low-dollar-value transactions, or high-volume transactions such as vending machines or transit systems, having a widely available, easily dispensed and accepted one-dollar coin will save money for businesses, which will help keep costs down for consumers. Mr. Speaker, the legislation directs the Mint and the Federal Reserve to work with all aspects of the economy to eliminate the barriers to circulation that seem to have harmed the current one-dollar coin, ranging from making sure that the coin is accepted by vending machines--and that the machines are ``stickered'' to say so--to making sure it is conveniently packaged for retailers and is available in rolled form when it re-circulates through the system, which is not now the case. It is important to note, Mr. Speaker, this program would be accepted by the public. In a [Page: E333]  GPO's PDF2002 General Accounting Office Report to Congress, it was found 25 percent of respondents would use the dollar coin more for purchases if there was a rotating design similar to the 50 State Quarter Program. Additionally, nearly 50 percent of respondents stated they would collect the new coin if it featured a rotating design. And 69 percent of respondents favored U.S. Presidents as the choice for the new rotating design on the dollar coin. Under the program, the images on the front and back of the coin temporarily would be replaced beginning in 2006 with images of the United States presidents. Four presidents a year would be honored, in the order of their service, with a likeness of the President, his name and dates of service and a number signifying the order in which he served, on the front of the coin. The image on the reverse would be that of the Statue of Liberty, large enough to be dramatic but not so large as to create a so-called ``two-headed'' coin. The date, mint mark and other important mottoes on the coin would go on the edge of the coin, leaving room on the faces for more dramatic artwork, harking back to the so-called Golden Age of American coins at the beginning of the last century. Mr. Speaker, the educational aspects of this program are obvious. We all know George Washington was the first president, but how many can tell the exact dates of his service to the country? How about the dates of service of the famous Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, who later became president? And how many in this Chamber can name the only President who would end up with two coins in the series because he served twice, in terms separated by another president's term? The bill specifies that the program would end at the point when the next coin issued would have to be for a sitting President, as our founding fathers wisely thought that no sitting president's image should be carried on a coin. At that point the coin would return to the images now carried on it, with the stigma of inadvertently being associated with a failed coin program washed from the rich legacy of Sacagewea. Mr. Speaker, this coin program by itself would be hard to argue with. Teachers will, as they have with the state quarter program, devise lesson plans around it. We will all look at the change in our pocket more closely, and learn more about our country in the process. But that is only half of this legislation. The second title of the bill creates a nearly pure gold investment-grade bullion coin, the same diameter as the dollar coin and of an appropriate weight and thickness, honoring the First Spouses, who have done so much for our country. On the front, as with the Presidential coins, would be the likeness of the spouse, his or her terms of service and the order in which they served. On the reverse would be images emblematic of the spouse's works. In the five instances to date in which Presidents had no spouses while in office--there's the educational part again--the bill calls for the image on the front of the coin to be that of an image of ``Liberty'' as used on a U.S. coin circulating during that President's term, and the reverse of the coin to carry images related to the President's term. These investment-grade coins would be struck in gold that is .9999 percent pure, a purity of gold the Mint never before has used to strike coins. Mr. Speaker, I think using pure gold for the spouse coin is appropriate, and I think it is appropriate that the President and spouse coins can be sold or collected in all sorts of combinations. Additionally, the spouse coins could be sold merely for their intrinsic investment value. Mr. Speaker, this legislation gives the Mint a great opportunity to show off its design and engraving talents and to develop new ones. It gives the Mint the opportunity to package the coins in a variety of ways, and the Mint gets more than a year to prepare to issue the first coin, so they can plan and get it right. As well, it allows for a transitional minting of the current dollar coins, though the demand will mostly be for collectors, so that 2006-dated Sacagewea dollar coins may be sold in large Lewis and Clark-Louisiana Purchase commemorative sets with 2006-dated Thomas Jefferson dollar coins. And with both the increase in dollar coins and the striking of bullion investment-grade coins, it creates jobs in a number of industries. In short, Mr. Speaker, I don't see any downsides to this bill and believe there are so many upsides that it should pass in short order, giving all of us something good, and fun, to talk about when we go back to our constituents. Mr. Speaker, so that the new $1 coin may be introduced into circulation in 2006 and that the Mint will be given adequate time to plan this program to ensure it is a logistic as well as an artistic success, I will be seeking to move the legislation quickly. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation and look forward to working with the Financial Services Committee to bring this bill to the House Floor as soon as possible. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/QUOTE]

Log in or Sign up

Reply to Thread

Useful Searches