Burning Money, Literally

Metaphor alert: The federal government has a money problem--just not the one you might think. Zachary Roth of Yahoo! News noted yesterday that CNBC had reported that due to problems with printing presses, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has had to stop production of new high-tech $100 bills. The bills, which include a 3-D security strip and a color-shifting image of a bell, are designed to thwart counterfeiters. But apparently they gummed up the presses, resulting in some of the bills becoming creased and printing with blank spaces.

The problem, the Washington Post noted this morning, is that it's difficult to weed out the faulty bills in the hundreds of millions that have been printed. After those are found, they'll have to be burned. And that was too much for Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., to resist: "We've been figuratively burning money for years, but now we're literally burning money?" he said.