Josh Barro, Columnist

The Federal Government Is Not a Small Business

January 7, 2013 at 6:03 PM UTC

Josh Barro is the lead writer for the Ticker, Bloomberg View's blog on economics, finance and politics. His primary areas of interest include tax and fiscal policy, state and local government, and planning and land use. Previously, Barro was a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a commercial real estate banker at Wells Fargo. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard and lives in Queens, New York.

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In the news release announcing his bill to derail the platinum coin effort,Republican Representative Greg Walden says something really stupid: “My wife andI have owned and operated a small business since 1986. When it came time to paythe bills, we couldn’t just mint a coin to create more money out of thinair."

Well, yeah, obviously the Waldens' company couldn't issue currency to pay itsbills, because issuing currency is a function of the federal government, not ofsome random small business in Oregon.