“I would refer you to Treasury for specifics of this question,” he said. “I can tell you the president does not believe that there is a backup plan or a Plan B or an off-ramp. The only option here is for Congress to fulfill … its responsibility and ensure the United States pays its bills.”
To be sure, parsing Carney’s comments is the ultimate exercise in splitting hairs. But as the country approaches its need to raise the debt ceiling, the political process has been reduced to such hair splitting.
While the $1 trillion coin approach may sound ridiculous, a mid-1990s law does give the Treasury Department the right to mint a coin made out of a tiny bit of platinum and stamp whatever denomination it wants on it.