Token of all tokens: Could a $1T coin fix the U.S. debt limit?

The United States will hit the debt ceiling Oct. 18 unless Congress acts in time to suspend it and some politicians think they've found a silver bullet for the impasse over the debt limit: a mint a $1 trillion coin.

Even its serious proponents - who are not that many - call it a gimmick. They say it is an oddball way out of an oddball accounting problem that will have severe consequences to average people's pocketbooks and the economy if it is not worked out in coming days.

But despite all the jokes about who should go on the face of the coin - Chuck E. Cheese? Donald Trump, to tempt or taunt the GOP? - there's scholarship behind it, too. However improbable, it is conceivable the government could turn $1 trillion into a coin of the realm without lawmakers having a say.

How is this possible when the treasury secretary can't simply print money to pay public debts? It's because a quirky law from more than 20 years ago seems to allow the administration to mint coins of any denomination without congressional approval as long as they're platinum.

The intent was to help with the production of commemorative coins for collectors, not to create a nuclear option in a fiscal crisis. Oops.