Common Sense

For some reason, stories about getting rid of the penny always surface around July 4th. I don’t know why, but they do. Here is the one running in today’s Chicago Sun-Times.

This year, for the first time, the U.S. Mint has said pennies are costing more than 1 cent to make, thanks to higher metal prices. ‘’The penny is going to disappear soon unless something changes in the economics of commodities,'’ said Robert Hoge, an expert on North American coins at the American Numismatic Society.

That very idea of spending 1.2 cents to put 1 cent into play strikes many people as ‘’faintly ridiculous,'’ said Jeff Gore, of Elkton, Md., founder of a little group called Citizens for Retiring the Penny.

‘Faintly ridiculous’ indeed. There’s almost no reason to keep the damn things. There are only three machines on earth that accept pennies: The toll booths in Illinois, those penny pressing arcade contraptions and coin counting machines people use to get rid of them. Penny slot machines don’t even take pennies. So why keep them?

Gallup polling has shown that two-thirds of Americans want to keep the 1-cent coin. There’s even a pro-penny lobby called Americans for Common Cents.

I oughtta sue for copyright infringement, or something. I’m willing to bet that most of that 2/3 are doing so for the same reason my mom still has all my art projects from kindergarten: sentimental value. Much like those same art projects, it is time to put away childish things and stop cluttering our cash registers and change jars with a nuisance coin that isn’t even that valuable.

Common Sense firmly is behind dropping the penny.