It was fun while it lasted, but you can put the speculation about the Treasury Department minting a $1 trillion platinum coin as a solution to the debt ceiling impasse to rest.

”Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, told the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein.

This news is not at all surprising. As I previously argued, if President Obama minted the platinum coin, it would have been a huge political gift to Republicans. The idea was both easy to mock and to attack as a new power grab by Obama. But now, Republican leaders are in a more difficult position, because it will be easier for Obama to lay the blame for any economic chaos that could result from a failure to raise the debt ceiling directly at the feet of the GOP.

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