A Penny Earned

The Normally Pound-Foolish Donald Trump Strikes Executive Order Gold.

Famous Pennys; retired or expired

For the second time in as many business days, Donald Trump has neatly anticipated my exact agenda and delivered for, if not the American people, then at least for this American person. On Friday, the President decreed that the US would be pivoting away from its pointless war on plastic straws, which have generated so many casualties, both metaphoric and actual in terms of the damage caused to the buccinator and orbicularis oris muscles when waging war with a recalcitrant paper straw.

Where the Sucking Comes From

Today it was the penny; the discarded, devalued, dusky disk now made up of 97% zinc. Australia eliminated its penny in 1992, Canada in 2013, and Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, and Slovakia have all begun rounding to eliminate pennies. Businesses don't want pennies, customers don't want them as change, and the "Give a Penny, Take a Penny" plate is a testament to their current existence as mere effluvia. The penny is not spent as a unit of currency, but is as a cultural idea.

The penny is not worth its cost of production. I, like President Trump, have often pointed out that the penny is twice as expensive to produce as its value. We’re both wrong. It actually costs 3.69 cents to manufacture a penny. By citing the cost as only "twice as much," Trump—perhaps for the first time in his career—understated the case. That’s how potent the anti-penny position is: Trump doesn’t even have to exaggerate to get his point across.

The only reason we keep pennies is to round off our change—i.e., so we don't have to accept more pennies. I leave the house with four pennies in my pocket, knowing this can stave off the vexation of a purchase ending in a 4 or 9. But really, recently even merchants have begun not to care. "It's fine," they say, waving off any transaction not ending in a 0 or 5. I felt for the newly hired clerk who felt it her duty to dip her finger into the penny drawer—a wasted motion, a dirtying movement, an inefficient gesture toward the past.

If you know me, you know I've been asking lawmakers about their penny policy for years. When I first interviewed Andrew Yang in 2018, he punted; he was too green to denounce the faux-copper currency. That same year, I asked then-presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg if he thought pennies should continue to be minted. After some verbiage about the uniqueness of the question, probably to buy himself some time to formulate a response, he answered, "I'm not ready to make news here and now that I'm anti-penny if only out of regard for Mr. Lincoln." The then-Mayor of South Bend, Indiana wondered, "I don't know what's more inefficient now, a $1 bill or a penny."

The answer is a penny, by far, with the dollar bill costing LESS to manufacture than the penny!

Governor Steve Bullock of Montana also came out against eliminating pennies, explaining, "I got a sentimental feeling for pennies. I hope as you're walking down the streets of the city, if you see a penny on the ground, you pick it up." I think this is bad policy, not just for me but for anyone in an important job who needn't be engaged in expending mental, physical, lumbar, or sanity resources in order to acquire a substance that was designed to be the basic unit of value but now has no practical value.

I can't tell Governor Bullock not to make a wish at 11:11 or to refrain from throwing salt over his shoulder, but if done with regularity or conspicuousness, it would mark him as a bit of an eccentric.

And I do understand—a penny is money. We shouldn’t come to regard it as akin to garbage. But we do, because that is the logical reaction to a small, hard-to-pick-up object that is worth almost nothing. The U.S. Treasury should not be putting us in this position.

Of all the elected officials I've asked about eliminating pennies over the years, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado was the only one who gave a respectable answer, saying, "On my gut, I'd say, yeah, let's get rid of the pennies. It sounds like we could spend money doing something else."

Indeed, but why is he the rare politician who will say so? Why do we have to wait for Donald Trump—DONALD TRUMP—to inject this bit of sensibleness into the public debate? It's like having your cat suddenly explain quantum physics: surprising, but you still have to admit it makes sense.

When I asked the seasoned politicians, who all believe in norms, governance, and procedure, they all chuckled and demurred or didn't want to touch this very obvious policy for fear of stepping in it, or offending, or whatever. Trump comes in, he has the basic facts down—YES, he does in this case—and he does something about it. This is what we want government to do and how we want government to do it.

The AP wants us to know—just as it seems to be the case with every executive order Trump has ever issued—that it’s unclear whether he has the power to unilaterally achieve his goal. The AP reports:

Currency specifications—including the size and metal content of coins—are dictated by Congress. But Robert K. Triest, an economics professor at Northeastern University, has argued that "the process of discontinuing the penny in the U.S. is a little unclear. It would likely require an act of Congress, but the Secretary of the Treasury might be able to simply stop the minting of new pennies."

But I don't see why this would be true. To quote 31 U.S. Code § 5111 - Minting and issuing coins, medals, and numismatic items:

The Secretary of the Treasury shall mint and issue coins described in section 5112 of this title in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States."

And if the Treasury Secretary, at the behest of Donald Trump, decides the necessary amount is none, so be it.

This is a simple, helpful, fairly obvious idea, and yet no one could actually pursue it until Donald Trump came along. Isn't this a metaphor for at least SOME of the procedural arguments the more reasonable Trump-supportive elements espouse?

Of course, the less reasonable Trump supporters, which is to say almost all Trump supporters, do have some initiatives to answer for. These include firing inspectors general, considering firing FBI agents, exposing CIA operatives, shutting down research in universities, eliminating birthright citizenship, shipping U.S. prisoners to El Salvador, restocking Guantanamo, giving Elon Musk unrestricted access to the U.S. Treasury Department's payment system, the whole Gaza thing, and as of a day ago, relaxing anti-bribery laws applicable to U.S. officials.

But at least regarding the last questionable policy on this list, it’s important to note that all bribery will henceforth be conducted in units other than pennies.

Or—and this is a VERY outside-the-box idea—only in pre-2025 pennies.