Alas for Schweikart, we're not also idiots.  According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO) any savings from the switch won't be seen for at least ten years.  The Super Committee he's appealing to is tasked with cutting $1.5 TRILLION in spending by the time the U.S. Treasury would stand to finally save its first copper dollar.  Not much of a help there, is it, even if the dubious savings are in fact finally realized two or three Presidents down the road.

So that's a timing problem.  There's a math problem, too.  Two of them even.

A not insignificant chunk of the U.S. economy is set-up and equipped to handle paper dollars, not coins.  Many businesses rely on machines that accept George Washington but don't know the Native American translator from Lewis or Clark.  The change would, in essence, represent a tax hike on these businesses as they are forced to conform to the newer, heavier, unwieldy norm.  The Super Committee is supposed to help trim the government, not make it more onerous.

The second math problem for the Congressman--because folks have already spoken on coin dollars and decline every day to use them, it is estimated that replacing the current 9.5 billion dollar bills would require 14.25 billion dollar coins in order to maintain a proper circulation of currency.  In other words, we're talking $4.75 billion in new upfront costs just to create the surplus coins.  Hardly cutting into the deficit that way, are we?

So what's Schweikart's deal?  Creating 14.25 billion new coins is going to require a lot of new metal.  I'll give you two guesses where the mines that supply that metal are located but you'll only need one.  Ah, Arizona.

So here we are with Schweikart's proposal on the table.  Camp, Upton and the rest of the Super Committee have a choice.  They can strap coin bags to each of our belts and pray to Heaven that the world of fashion continues its retro-trend and harkens us back to the 60s--the 1160s--or it can ignore this special interest nonsense and focus on real cuts to real big-government spending programs that will save real taxpayers real dollars.  

Whatever they're made of.