if tax is 5.5% how do you do this with no pennies. Now we pay more for stuff - who get the round up money?
I know- get rid of tax?!

no red herring with eliminating the penny...if it cost more to produce it doesn't matter how many times it gets used, because it isn't worth it's face value...debasing the monetary system was one of the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire...any similarities, anyone?

Using the fact that it cost more than a penny to make a penny as a reason to eliminate it is a "red herring". It would have relevance if that penny was used only one time and then thrown away. Since the penny can be used multiple times for multiple years, the argument that it cost more than a penny to make a penny is weak at best for getting rid of the penny. I personally would rather support getting rid of the dime and the half dollar and keeping the penny, nickle, and quarter. Best response I have seen so far is from BBB at 4:14 pm

every penny counts, so we pick them up if we see them...if it costs us more to produce them than what they're worth, we shouldn't have them...

Other countries have done this. Merchants actually do round up and down properly.

they got rid of it many years ago overseas. Very simple...3-4 cents they round up a nickel on the total. 1-2 cents they round down...isnt this like 3rd grade math?

No wonder youre so resistant to the change to metric. Youre too proud of your own damned stupidity to change...makes you look like the rednecks you so love to criticize.

Keep the penny!!!!!

"Cash for gold"? We have all heard the ads these days. BUT! The American public was lied to and robbed of their gold and silver for YEARS! They were given in return not MONEY, but NOTES! You think you know about money, read this....
.
http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/reserve.ht...

If we get rid of the penny, how is that going to work for things that don't come out to the even 5 cent mark? Sales tax here is 5.5%. Depending on the sale price of something, it doesn't always (or rather, rarely) comes out to an even 5 cent mark. Are all prices going to have to be set so that it comes out at an even 5 cent mark? Or will everything simply be rounded up. Who collects that extra then, the retailer, or the government? Either way isn't not the customer. It doesn't seem like a lot at first, but spend a week saving ever receipt you get, round the total up to the nearest 5 cent mark, and see how much it makes a difference. It might be very little, but it might be a significant amount of money over a year. I think that's something we need to consider very seriously.

So, if the penny is eliminated and vendors are encouraged to round to a nickel, you can bet your life they all round UP to a nickel and that spells an imeadiate jump in inflation. Will our income be rounded to compensate? And what about the gas pump? How many times do you go over by a penny because it is hard to stop those numbers from changing exactly on a dollar? Now instead of having to dig for a penny you will have to dig for a nickel. God forbid you should overshoot the pump by 2 pennies and now have to pay a dime. It adds up fast. And I would be willing to bet that you would still only be getting a pennies worth of gas over the dollar mark that you are now paying a nickel for. I think the penny should stay even tho in most cases it is a nuisance coin, it does actually save the consumer money in the long run.

It sure would save the Government millions because it costs a fraction over 2 cents to make one. How stupid is that ?

BBB ..better yet, why not pay all the politicians with pennies,they don't make any sense anyways !

I think dollar coins would have been accepted more widely if they had stood out more from quarters. Had the Susan B. Anthony been thicker, like the British Pound coin, or dual-metal design, like some European coins (Euro, Italian 500 Lira, French 10 Francs), I think dollar coins would have gained more acceptance by now.

I'm against dropping the penny from our currency because I think it will hasten inflation, and set a bad precedent.

NEVER!!!!!!!!

Considering how quickly the U.S. dollar is devalued and is declining, perhaps, we should not act hastily. Couldn't we keep the "copper" (zinc) coin in use and just substitute a $1 mark on it? We could save a great deal of paper which wears out quickly. I think the coins would last longer. Coins seem to survive many cycles in my wash machine. Further, couldn't we also eliminate the nickle and save? Maybe we could could get an opinion from Standard and Poors on the status of the American economy before altering our currency values.

The amount of actual cash in existence is only a fraction of all "money." Money now is almost all electronic.

Keep the paper dollar, they should never have invented the dollar coin. All coins & bills will be out dated someday in the future and we will have a card to use instead of money.

Instead of getting rid of the penny we should get rid of the politicans in Washington who can't manage money.

Don't count the penny out so soon. They got the lights back on at the Superbowl by putting a penny behind the fuse.

baegucb, good point. I was going to make a joke about what would happen if they used the metric system for our money.

Ah the irony. Opposition to metrics when discussing US coins.

The US dollar 100 years ago is worth about 20-30 times what it is today. So, the smallest coin back then was worth about a quarter today. Was anybody back then clamouring to make a new coin worth 1/25th ȼ? Umm, no. Is there any useful purpose for a penny today? Again, no. We could probably plan to phase out nickels in another 5-10 years as well.

We should get rid of the penny, and also the paper dollar. It’s greatly outlived its usefulness, and once you get used to one- and two-dollar coins, you’ll never miss the paper version.

Imjust....

The chances are zero meters.

By the way, there was a failed movement here in the '70s. It would be easier for school children to learn metric though. But I resent the hostilities from Canada and other countries for our resistance to going metric.

http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/circ...

I'd rather see the USA go metric, but what's the chance of that happening?

Yes I will pick up a penny and I do it all the time. I just have a change bucket, and pennies are prevelant in there. I definitely think though that we should follow Canada`s lead on this, especially because it costs more than 1 cent to make them. That is common sense.