Treasury Sec. Geither Can Radically Cut Production of US President $1 Coins

Open e-mail to Rep. Neugebauer:

Randy,

My associate, Gordon Anderson, has brought to my attention an ABC video clip by reporter Dianne Sawyer, which shows that the US Mint is producing Presidential $1 coins in quantities well above reason. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/coins-costing-taxpayers-14076274 (after the Merck commercial).

The clip indicates that "By act of Congress", the Philadelphia Mint is producing the coins at the rate of $600,000 per day, Since there is essentially no circulation demand, the coins are being stored. Present stored coins have a $1 billion face value. Additional storage space will be required for additional minted coins, until the project is terminated in 2016. The new storage facility will cost $650,000 and shipping cost will be $3 million. Rep. Jack Reed was a cosponsor of the original bill. In the clip, he recommends Congress do something about the problem.

Wikipedia also has an extensive presentation of the program. Included is a reference to Rep. Jackie Speier of California, who is currently circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter recommending that the U.S. not produce any dollar coins. She plans to introduce legislation calling for the immediate halting of all dollar coin programs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_$1_Coin_Program.


With that background, I decided to look at the Act itself.

The "Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005’’ (Public Law 109-145) requires the US Mint, among other requirements, to produce each year a quantity of $1 coins commemorating four US Presidents, until all Presidents have been so honored. The Act included an Amendment to Section 5112 of Title 31, United States Code, with the addition of:
‘‘(n) REDESIGN AND ISSUANCE OF CIRCULATING $1 COINS HONORING EACH OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.—" and related subparagraphs.
The quantity of issued (minted?) coins is specified in:
‘‘(4) ISSUANCE OF COINS COMMEMORATING 4 PRESIDENTS DURING EACH YEAR OF THE PERIOD.—
‘‘(B) NUMBER OF 4 CIRCULATING COIN DESIGNS IN EACH YEAR.—The Secretary shall prescribe, on the basis of such factors as the Secretary determines to be appropriate, the number of $1 coins that shall be issued with each of the designs selected for each year of the period referred to in paragraph (1).
(http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ145.109.pdf)

If I understand this correctly, Congress does not need to take any legislative action to stop the exorbitant minting. A simple phone call to Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner suggesting that he cut the volume of coins for each President to say $1000 should be enough to do the trick. If Geithner is uncooperative, you might ask for a Congressional hearing to have him explain publicly why he continues this exorbitant minting.