What the supercommittee should have done

Supercommittee should focus on monetary reform to eliminate national debt
Friday, November 18, 2011
http://blog.cleveland.com/letters/2011/11/supercommittee_should_focus_on.html

Since Democrats and Republicans on the congressional supercommittee, including Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, are having difficulty finding common ground on spending reductions and tax increases to reduce the debt, they should focus on an arena where both might agree-- monetary reform.

Passage of the National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act, H.R. 2990, would eliminate the national debt by authorizing the U.S. government to print U.S. dollars (different from the Federal Reserve notes in our wallets) to pay off U.S. treasury bonds, bills and notes as they come due.

Virtually all of our nation's money is currently created by banking corporations as debt to people, businesses and governments -- to be paid back with interest that over time often becomes an inflationary debt trap.

Democratic Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson felt "we the people," not banks, should create our own money, while Republican President Abraham Lincoln created public money (greenbacks) to preserve the union. The U.S. Constitution empowers the government to coin money.

Portman and his supercommittee colleagues should recommend a policy to eliminate our national debt that most people already believe has existed since the nation's founding -- a policy to democratize the U.S. monetary system that is both progressive and conservative.

Greg Coleridge Cleveland Heights

Coleridge is director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee in Cuyahoga Falls.