How Minting a Trillion-Dollar Platinum Coin Could Avoid a Constitutional Crisis

More and more politicians are waking up to the fact that in an emergency, the Treasury could mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin in order to stave off a default on U.S. government debt. A default on U.S. Treasuries would likely be catastrophic, and so this “Plan C” is seen as an option to maintain financial order in the event that Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner.

But beyond the financial arguments, there’s also a good argument that minting the coin avoids a constitutional crisis as well.