President Trump on Sunday introduced that he requested the Treasury Division to prevent generating pennies, calling the only cent coin wasteful.
He mentioned in a Reality Social publish that he advised Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to finish minting the small-value cash with President Abraham Lincoln’s symbol on them.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump mentioned.
The price of creating a penny used to be just about 3.7 cents in Fiscal 12 months 2024 and the coin has price above face price to make for 19 consecutive fiscal years, consistent with the U.S. Mint’s annual document.
Pennies have been product of copper sooner than 1962 and are lately made majority of zinc however with copper plating. Lincoln has been at the penny since 1909 and the penny used to be the primary coin made through the U.S. Mint, consistent with the Treasury Division.
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has been tasked through Trump with slicing waste within the U.S., focused the penny in a publish on X closing month.
“The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023. The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in FY2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced. Penny (or 3 cents!) for your thoughts,” Musk’s Division of Executive Potency (DOGE) mentioned.
