Politically Doable

I gather that it's conventional wisdom that there would be some tremendous backlash if Congress tried to do away with the penny, but I find that a bit puzzling. Do people love amassing large amounts of almost worthless spare change? Is it resistance from the dreaded Big Penny lobby?

Get rid of the penny? The proposals are alternatives to what many consider a more pragmatic, but politically impossible solution to the penny problem: getting rid of the penny altogether.

"People still want pennies, which is why we're still making them," Moy said.

Even Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged in a radio interview earlier this year that getting rid of the penny made sense but wasn't politically doable -- and certainly nothing he is planning to tackle during the Bush team's final months in office.

While we're at it, can we get rid of one and five dollar bills and make it possible to actually use a bill worth more than a twenty?