Deep-six the $1 bill, use coins instead, Rep. Schweikert urges

You know. The money so many Americans have come to hate. The Susan B. Anthony. How about the gold-tinted Sacagawea? Or the presidential or Native American coins that replaced them, and still are being minted?

That lack of love aside, a first-term Arizona Republican congressman thinks he can persuade Americans to do what prior efforts have not: scrap their dollar bills in favor of coins.

Rep. David Schweikert is not relying on Americans changing their habits and voluntarily trading in their bills for dollar coins. His legislation would force people to give up the greenbacks. He said he does not intend to make the same mistake as one former member of the state's congressional delegation.

It was Rep. Jim Kolbe who, in 1997, pushed through a measure to replace the wildly unpopular Susan B. Anthony dollar with what became the Sacagawea coin.

But as Kolbe later conceded, the bill he was able to get through Congress had a shortcoming: It allowed the government to keep printing dollar bills. And as long as those bills remain available, the public has shown little interest in replacing them with chunks of metal.

Schweikert's legislation would require Federal Reserve banks to stop issuing dollar bills when the circulation of dollar coins exceeds 600 million a year, but no later than four years after the measure becomes law.

He said the prior offerings failed because of "halfhearted" efforts or when "a handful of politicians get nervous and run away from it."

Schweikert says it's one way to deal with the mounting deficit.

A report by the General Accounting Office puts the cost of minting a coin at about 15 cents, compared to less than 3 cents for a bill. But the GAO puts the average lifespan of a bill in the neighborhood of three years.

Schweikert put the annual savings at $184 million. Multiply that out over just the first decade, he said, "it starts being real money."

Schweikert contends it will not be necessary to force Americans to give up their dollar bills. He said experience elsewhere proves that people will accept coins over small-denomination bills.

In Europe, the five-euro bill is the smallest paper denomination among countries that use it, with one- and two-euro coins. And Canada replaced its one dollar bill with a coin commonly called a "loonie" because of the waterfowl image it carries.

Number of coins produced, 1979 - 2009

Coin design Number as of 11/09 Production years

Susan B. Anthony 932 million 1979-1982 and 1999-2000

Sacagawea 1.47 billion 2000-2008

Presidential series 1.72 billion 2007-ongoing

Native American series 92 million 2009-ongoing

Total 4.2 billion

SOURCE: General Accounting Office