Everything You Need to Know About Mint the Coin

If you follow anybody remotely interested in politics on Twitter, you've probably seen a reference to "mint the coin" fly across your stream at some point this month. And if you've seen that reference, you might have some questions: What coin? Who's minting it? What's it for?

Here's the skinny: According to the Treasury, the government hit its Congressionally-approved spending limit on Dec. 31 of 2012. While raising the debt ceiling has traditionally been a mostly uncontroversial practice, many congressional Republicans are now refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to spending cuts.

Raising the debt ceiling allows the federal government to pay back loans it already…
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