Dave's Verse

There have been many arguments made on the blogs that the platinum coin is a legal way to avoid default on the debt if Republicans in the House refuse to raise the debt ceiling. I'm largely sympathetic to those arguments, and to those who say it's a crazy idea. It kind of is. But it's not more crazy than the idea that the Republicans shouldn't raise the debt ceiling simply for the sake of it without getting something in return. So it makes some sense to want to respond to a crazy tactic with a crazy tactic of your own. But Ezra Klein makes the case that the way to solve the problem isn't with your own crazy tactic (the platinum coin): The argument against minting the platinum coin is simply this: It makes it harder to solve the actual problem facing our country. That problem is not the debt ceiling, per se, though it manifests itself most dangerously through the debt ceiling. It’s a Republican Party that has grown extreme enough to persuade itself that stratage...