Penny pinching? Donald Trump ends production of pennies to save money

As part of his efforts to end waste and fraud in the federal government, President Donald Trump ordered an end to the minting of US pennies yesterday (Sunday).

While at the Super Bowl, the President posted on his Truth Social account that he instructed Treasury Secretary Scott Bennet to cease minting pennies:

"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."

The American penny, worth 1 cent or 1/100th of a US dollar, has been minted since 1909 with the image of President Abraham Lincoln. There are many common sayings involving pennies including "a penny for your thoughts," "penny pincher," "pretty penny," "in for a penny, in for a pound," "penny ante," and "penny-wise, pound-foolish."

Trump's efforts at "penny pinching" include authorizing Elon Musk and his small but dedicated team at the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE to investigate and if necessary freeze any and all payments not explicitly authorized by Congressional statute to see if it's being spent in accordance with the values of the administration.

Musk has already caused much consternation within government agencies such as USAID and others, which have been shown to have spent money on all sorts of projects with dubious connections to American national aims and sometimes in contravention to Trump's executive orders.

Nevertheless, Trump has given him his full backing to clean out waste, fraud, and abuse throughout the US government, and DOGE is likely to expand its efforts to end waste to other departments, including the Department of Defense and elsewhere, in the coming weeks and months.