Use of Dollar Coins as Opposed to Dollar Bills in the US Essay

Use of Dollar Coins as Opposed to Dollar Bills in the US - Essay Example As the paper outlines. with the US budget deficit expected to reach the $1.5 trillion mark this year, the government is under immense pressure to initiate sustainable cost-cutting measures. Eliminating the dollar bill and replacing it with dollar coins should be one of the measures because the government will save the taxpayer more than $5 billion in the next 3 decades among other benefits. Cutting on spending is the biggest priority that the US government has so as to set the economy back in motion. The government currently spends a great deal of money printing and circulating the dollar bills. It will actually take 31 cents less to produce a dollar coin as opposed to a dollar bill according to Fiegerman. A coin will definitely last longer than a bill, therefore, saving on reprinting cost. The dollar bill is made of low-quality materials which tend to wear out within 3 years. This will not be the case with a dollar coin which can last for 34 years. It is also estimated that the doll ar bill will become more expensive to make owing to the fact that cotton prices are increasing steadily. This has shot up the cost of making paper by up to 50% as compared to the same time back in 2007. The EU and countries like Canada and Japan have relied on coins for their low denominations. Canada actually found that it saved more than 10 times their earlier estimated figures. Another issue relates to jamming of machines when producing the dollar bills. The Week states that more than $1 billion gets lost after vending machines jam thereby requiring repairs and companies losing on revenue from sales.  There are arguments that the dollar bill is one of the distinctive features of the United States economy and eliminating it will erode this uniqueness. There is also the belief that change to dollar coins will hurt the economy, especially in the current state.