On The Money: Presidential Coins

Minting Meltdown for Taxpayers

Mike Luery

You've heard of the government printing money we don't have, but for years the feds has been minting coins we don't use – at a cost to taxpayers of millions of dollars.

The coins are presidential dollars, bearing the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and other U.S. presidents.

Congress mandated the minting of these presidential coins six years ago and now more than half of them are sitting unused in federal vaults – more than a billion dollars worth of money that nobody seems to want.

"I think that's ridiculous," said Rosemary Gaber of Sacramento. "I think we ought to get them out of the vaults and use them," she told CBS 13 at a coin-operated laundromat.

The presidential coins "look exactly like quarters" many patrons noted, but they are actually worth a dollar and laundromats won't accept them in their coin slots.

Americans are not keen on the coins, in part, because of confusion over what they are.
"If you're not paying attention you would think it's a quarter," stated Marsha Kohler of Sacramento.

Some people are even gaming the system by buying $10,000 worth of coins on their credit cards to rack up frequent flyer miles, according to Californian Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Democrat from San Mateo.

In an interview with CBS 13, Speier stated, "They get 10,000 miles then they turn it around and use it for travel and return the coins to the local bank."

But the banks don't want the presidential coins. In fact, they have been sending them back to the Federal Reserve, which is now building new vaults just to store them at an extra cost to taxpayers of $650,000, according to the Federal Reserve. That's on top of the $300 million taxpayers are shelling out to mint the presidential coins.

The coins are not popular, except with coin collectors who told CBS 13 that with two currencies Americans will choose paper over coins even though coins last much longer and would ultimately save money for taxpayers.

"The greenback's going to be recycled in three years," said James Haney, a coin collector and corresponding secretary for the Sacramento Valley Coin Club.

As for the presidential dollar, Haney noted: "I think they're not popular because we still have the dollar bill in the United States. I mean, as long as there is a paper dollar, people are going to choose that over a dollar coin. This coin, if it's in circulation, normal wear and tear, (will last) 30 years easily," Haney added.

Haney is the president of his own architectural firm in addition to being an avid coin enthusiast.

For now, the presidential coins are destined for the storage closet, but Congresswoman Jackie Speier has introduced a bill that would force the U.S. mint to stop making the presidential coins.

"It was a great experiment," she told CBS 13. "It didn't work and now it's time to stop the hemorrhaging in terms of spending more money minting these dollar coins that won't be used. At a time when we're teetering on the precipice financially, $300 million is real money."

If Speir's bill is unsuccessful, the federal government will continue making the presidential coins until all the commanders-in-chief have been minted, a process that will continue until 2016.