Trump abolishes the ‘wasteful’ penny in mid-Tremendous Bowl social media rant

President Trump has ordered the U.S. Treasury to axe the “wasteful” penny throughout a social media rant whereas watching the Tremendous Bowl in New Orleans.

“For much too lengthy the US has minted pennies which accurately price us greater than 2 cents. That is so wasteful! I’ve instructed my Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to cease producing new pennies”, he wrote in an 8:30 p.m. Reality Social submit Sunday.

Trump fired the demand citing the rising prices attributed to the one-cent coin – a longstanding debate that was spotlighted by Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity on X final month. Musk’s staff of DOGE geniuses have reportedly recognized and minimize greater than $1 billion in federal spending because it started pillaging authorities departments.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our nice nation’s price range, even when it is a penny at a time”, Trump added within the Reality submit.

At current, there are estimated to be round 250 billion pennies in circulation within the U.S. and the symbolic coin was first issued in 1793.

However dismally in 2024, the U.S. Mint introduced that every one-cent penny price 3.69 cents to fabricate – a worth that quantities to over three and a half instances the coin’s face worth.

The Treasury Division additionally said that prices had been pushed up because the earlier 12 months with the penny’s unit price growing by 20.2 %, the nickel by 19.4 %, the dime 8.7 %, and the quarter-dollar by 26.2 %.

Nonetheless, this got here in tandem with a reported lack of $85.3 million within the 2024 fiscal 12 months and a revelation that “the unit price for pennies (3.69 cents) and nickels (13.78 cents) remained above face worth for the nineteenth consecutive fiscal 12 months.”

Like lots of Trump’s elaborate requires reform, it’s unclear whether or not he’ll have the ability to observe by means of together with his calls for with out going through troublesome obstacles from Congress as they management specs akin to the scale and steel content material of cash.

Lawmakers could also be pressured to cross laws on money transactions unable to be divided by the following lowest denomination – the five-cent coin, in accordance with Fortune. Up to now, the legislature has mentioned the premise of rounding costs up or right down to the closest 5 cents.

Trump’s involvement of Musk in ransacking federal departments whereas they hint monetary holes within the system has attracted waves of widespread criticism in latest weeks. Primarily, as a result of its muddied roster of employees, who’ve made a number of daring makes an attempt to assert authority and directed expeditious cuts throughout the board – and DOGE doesn’t seem like halting its efforts anytime quickly.