In effect, the president of the US is, in fact, totally responsible for the sad state of the economy. This is because he actually has legal and constitutional control over the US debt and the current debt limits. But there are folks that go WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to far with Treasury seigniorage.
The act of creating one or more extreme face value platinum coins and using those coins to retire debt held on the books of the FED is not inflationary. Nor is it a devaluation of the currency UNLESS the FED chooses to continue with massive amounts of quantitative easing. But this is the hammer that the president holds and the congress must act to forbid it. The current law allows it. That means that the Democratically controlled Senate must sign off on legislation that would forbid the creation of the coins and the president would also have a choice of vetoing such legislation.
It would appear that the pres has the Republicans by the short and curlies.
All of the talk about retiring the debt held by the public and the total destruction of the "borrowing" system in which the FED acts as moderator is scaring the hell out of the natives (and me too). But in the hands of a rational president the "coin trick" is a stone cold winner. And it seems to me that the mere hint of employing it would return some needed control to the hands of the executive and the Senate . The Republican House has gone way too far. The House must still appropriate the spending, but the past spending doth not need appropriations. The threat of currency devaluation staring the rich people in the face is a a major bargaining chip that should be employed by Obama. It reminds me of Lincoln's "Green Backs".