By johnsroad7 @ Adobe Stock
It took the Federal Reserve 112 years to make the dollar so worthless that the penny can be eliminated with almost no pushback. Rather than wondering what happened to the value of a penny, Americans seem content to eliminate what has become an annoying reminder of how worthless the dollar has become. At the Cato Institute, Tad Dehaven celebrates the potential end of the penny, writing:
Do you enjoy getting pennies back in change when you pay for something with cash? Probably not. Pennies are generally a nuisance for both buyer and seller and often just get tossed in a jar or the trash.
Per the president’s instructions, the US Treasury recently announced it will stop making the penny. Last year, producing one penny cost almost four cents, costing the US Mint $85 million. Not for the first time, bipartisan legislation in both houses of Congress would eliminate it. The penny should have been jettisoned long ago, but previous efforts in Congress failed in part because a special interest benefits from its continuance.
As an in-depth New York Times Magazine piece recounts, almost 50 years ago, President Gerald Ford’s Treasury Secretary William Simon told Congress to “give serious consideration” to ending the penny. President Barack Obama recognized its obsolescence but believed Congress needed to act. Whether the Treasury can act unilaterally by stopping penny production isn’t clear, but questions of legality are of little concern to this administration. Congress may finally be ready to do its job, so hopefully it won’t matter.
Read more here.
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