Should the U.S. get rid of $1 bills? Congress is considering phasing out $1 bills and replacing them with $1 coins.

• Position: DEBATE

YES

Every year, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing spends $200 million to produce about 4 billion $1 bills. That's about half of all the bills the government prints.

And every year, more than 3 billion dollar bills get pulled from circulation, shredded, and sent to landfills. That's 15 million pounds of paper currency--and millions of taxpayer dollars--being wasted.

Why do so many dollar bills end up in landfills so soon? Because they're made of paper that wears down quickly when handled repeatedly, and singles change hands a lot more often than larger bills.

There's an easy solution: Replace $1 bills with $1 coins. The COINS Act would require the Federal Reserve to stop printing $1 bills four years after my bill passes.

For more than 20 years, the Government Account ability Office has advocated switching to $1 coins. It estimates that the U.S. could save more than $4 billion over 30 years by switching to coins. That's a big chunk of change.

Dollar coins have an average life span of 34 years; when they do finally wear out, they can be recycled. In comparison, dollar bills last only two to four years before they're discarded. A single dollar coin could do the job of up to 17 one-dollar bills over the course of its lifetime.

The U.S. would not be the first country to make this switch. Britain phased out its one-pound note in 1984 and has been using one-pound coins ever since. Canada started replacing its dollar bills with coins in 1987. It's time the U.S. did the same.

CONGRESSMAN DAVID SCHWEIKERT

Republican of Arizona

NO

The idea of eliminating the dollar bill and replacing it with a coin as a way to save money is misguided and doomed. Polls show that 83 percent of Americans favor keeping the dollar bill over the dollar coin, and 63 percent say they're less likely to support a...