I read about this a while ago and the idea was brought back to public...I thought that the Mint scrapped the idea... Click the title of the article on the page to go to the permanent page and see the whole story: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.coincollectingnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Steel-Pennies1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.coincollectingnews.org/tag/pennies&usg=__Nuz2Qawnjo0Tlu4COvAv3Li-kLU=&h=190&w=308&sz=13&hl=en&start=5&itbs=1&tbnid=ulrVcvnCyGtfgM:&tbnh=72&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3D2010%2Bsteel%2Bpennies%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1
No the Mint never scrapped it because it was a good idea. Congress moves much too slowly when it comes to these matters. The Lincoln cent first started having problems with cost over that of face value in 1974 because copper was going up. They tried to get authoriztion to change the composition then but didn't finaly get it for eight years. So for close to eight years they lost money. Now the cent and the five cent are both in that position and have been for a couple years now. They have been trying to get either legislation changing the composition or authority to do so on their own when it becomes needed. I forsee many more years of losses thanks to Congress before something is done. The constitutional argument is bull because Congress can still maintain the overall authority while delegating the responsibility to the Treasury Dept to make changes as need to keep from producing the coins at a loss. Congress is constantly delegating their authority to others to get the nitty gritty part of the work done. For some reason in this case they are balking.
Just wondering what such a move would exert on the supply/demand/price of zinc/nickel/copper and the proposed substitutes? Would such a change cause a net loss in jobs for example? And what about the other ancillary economic costs or benefits.
Well the metals industry have always played a disproportionate part of this debate. It was no surprise that nickel was included first in cents then in 5 cent pieces after the owner of the largest nickel mine lined the pockets of a lot of congressmen. Before that the gold interest got a new mint in SF opened, and after that the silver miners had the treasury mint hundreds of millions of morgans the country didn't need. It used to be the copper miners pushing to keep the penny, now its the zinc miners lobbying to keep the cent, and copper producers trying to get it discontinued. Cotton interests fight all bills to eliminate low denomination bills and allowing coins to circulate. Our Congress is incapable of actually leading and doing what is right for the nation without getting paid extra to do it.
Bottom line, lobbying should be outlawed... but nobody will outlaw it in congress due to the huge sums of money that they receive from lobbyists.
Not to mention have you ever noticed how many public officials, when they are finally put out of office, go to work AS lobbyists. First they get all kinds of perks from the lobbyists, then they get paid to hand out those same perks to others.
