Adrift in a Sea of Moral Bankruptcy

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, a Trump appointee, announced that the face of Donald John Trump, the sitting President of the United States, would appear on US one-dollar coins starting in the fall, a move that seems to be somewhat legally dubious.  

The new coins are being described in some press releases as "gold" but they are, in fact, not composed of gold but only had a "gold-like" finish.

Living Presidents have traditionally been barred from appearing on American currency and coinage, but the Trump administration argued that an exception could be made for Trump through provisions of a special law passed by Congress, "The Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020," which authorizes the Treasury Department to oversee the minting of special coins for the nation's semiquincentennial.

Federal law stipulates that the design must be approved by two other agencies:  the Commission of Fine Arts (whose seven members have all been appointed by Trump after he dismissed the forner members), and the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, an 11-person advisory committee established by Congress. The first group, composed of Trump appointees, approved the design in January, but the second group, established by Congress and whose members are appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury for four year terms, never acted on the issue.   The Treasury went ahead with its plans without their approval.  Some members of the CCAC said they were never given an opportunity to review the design, and a spokesman for the Mint said that the committee made a :"conscious decision not to act" and that the "Mint moved forward accordingly."  (Hence, my description of the manufacture of the new coins as "legally dubious'")

Barring a court intervention, the new coins will begin appearing in the fall.  That is also when American currency will, for the first time ever, bear the signature of the sitting President.

Scott Bessent, the secretary of our national treasury who was appointed by Donald Trump and the man who gave the "go ahead" for the new Trump coin, said that the new one-dollar coin:

"It celebrates the strength of American values, and the promise of a nation dedicated to preserving freedom for all."

Does it really, Scott?  Does placing the image of a man convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree celebrate the strength of American values?  Is honoring a man adjudicated by a federal civil jury of sexual abuse and battery the message we want to imprint on the minds of honest, hard-working Americans about our nation's values?  Are those the values we want to impart on our children and grandchildren?

If Donald John Trump is the face of America's values, we are adrift in a sea of moral bankruptcy.

Just sayin' . . .