Senate Passes Bill to End Wasteful Penny Production, Fix Cash Transactions
The U.S. Senate showed a rare display of bipartisanship this week that does not happen often.
The Senate unanimously approved the Common Cents Act, a practical measure that formally ends production of the money-losing penny and gives the Treasury Department authority to develop a cheaper nickel.
The move, many argue, will potentially save taxpayers millions while simplifying everyday cash purchases for American consumers and small businesses.
The legislation, which already cleared the House earlier, advanced by unanimous consent.
It targets three long-standing problems with U.S. coinage that have quietly drained public resources and created headaches at checkout counters nationwide.
First, the bill officially terminates the minting of circulating pennies.
The U.S. Mint already produced its final one-cent coins for general circulation last year, though special collectible versions marking America’s 250th anniversary entered circulation earlier this year.
Under the new measure, the Federal Reserve must work to minimize any remaining supply disruptions.
Existing pennies stay fully legal tender—Americans still hold an estimated 300 billion of them, or more than 800 per person—so no one loses the value of coins already in their pockets, jars, or couches.
The second major provision addresses the real-world confusion that has grown since pennies stopped flowing to retailers.
Businesses would gain the clear legal option to round cash transactions to the nearest nickel.
A purchase totaling $19.82 would round down to $19.80, while $19.83 would round up to $19.85.
This voluntary approach applies only to cash deals, leaving credit cards, mobile payments, and checks unaffected.
Advocates note that some states and localities currently ban the practice, creating a patchwork of rules that frustrates both store owners and customers.
The Common Cents Act would preempt those restrictions and restore common sense at the register.
Perhaps most important for fiscal conservatives, the legislation tackles the chronically unprofitable nickel.
Producing a single five-cent coin cost taxpayers 13.31 cents in fiscal year 2025—down only slightly from 13.78 cents the year before.
That marks two full decades of the government losing money on every nickel it strikes. The coin is roughly 75 percent copper, and soaring metal prices have driven the losses, just as they once did for the penny.
The bill empowers the Treasury to test and evaluate a more affordable alternative recipe. Both the House and Senate versions call for a “composition of zinc and nickel” for the coin, “subject to testing and evaluation” that shows it cuts cost and “has a minimal adverse impact on machines designed to accept coins.”
Zinc traded nearly $7,000 per metric ton cheaper than copper last year, according to Mint data.
Only the penny and the dollar coin currently use zinc in significant amounts.
Officials stress that any new formula must still work smoothly in vending machines, parking meters, and coin counters that millions of businesses rely on.
A separate proposal to eliminate the nickel remains stuck in a House committee, so the five-cent piece will continue circulating for now.
The Common Cents Act wisely focuses on making the existing coin cheaper rather than rushing to abolish it.
If the president signs the measure into law, Americans can expect fewer pointless government losses on coin production and smoother cash payments in stores.
Retailers will no longer face conflicting local rules about rounding, and the Treasury will finally have tools to redesign the nickel without waiting for another two decades of red ink.
The unanimous Senate vote signals that even in a polarized Congress, lawmakers can still agree on basic fiscal responsibility.
Cutting waste on coins that cost more to make than they are worth is the kind of straightforward reform that benefits every taxpayer, small-business owner, and cash-paying customer.
The Common Cents Act delivers exactly that—practical solutions without the usual Washington drama.
Trump Says He Would ‘Absolutely’ Ban Sharia Law
President Donald Trump made headlines this week with massive remarks about Sharia Law.
The president delivered an emphatic message Wednesday on the place of Sharia law in America, saying he would “absolutely” support prohibiting attempts to establish the Islamic legal system in the United States and insisting that the country must remain governed by a single constitutional framework.
Trump made the remarks during a live interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, who pressed the president about ideological threats he believes are gaining ground inside the United States.
The exchange came as Sharia law has emerged as a flashpoint in national politics, including in the closely watched Michigan Senate race, where Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed has faced Republican criticism over previous remarks concerning Islamic law.
Beck raised what he described as a “Red-Green Alliance,” referring to an alleged convergence between far-left political movements and Islamist ideology.
He specifically cited the Democratic Socialists of America and Islam before asking Trump whether he would support federal action against Sharia law.
Trump left little doubt about where he stands.
“On Sharia law, I would absolutely say that’s not this country. There’s no Sharia law. And you do have pockets of it, as you know,” Trump replied.
The president then pointed overseas, arguing that developments in major European cities should serve as a warning for Americans.
“I would say no, and you go to London, you go to Paris. It’s almost like a second way of life. It is ridiculous,” Trump said.
“And I would absolutely be on your side on that, on a lot of other people’s side too, because, you know, you and I have people that, I think, we’re more based upon common sense than we are on ideology,” Trump added.
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Trump went on to make his position even clearer, telling Beck that he would support stopping any effort to establish Sharia as a competing legal authority inside the United States.
“Good politics is all about common sense anyway but i would absolutely prohibit the Sharia law thing and it is happening in this country a little bit and when we see it we take it out and you have to take it out,” he continued.
“You have one system, we have a great system, sometimes it’s very frustrating but it’s the best there is, that I can say,” the president concluded.
Trump’s remarks arrive amid a growing conservative debate over Islamic law and whether additional legislation is needed to ensure foreign or religious legal systems cannot supersede American constitutional protections.
Under the Constitution, federal law and constitutional protections already take precedence over religious codes.
Muslims, like Americans of other faiths, remain free to observe religious practices privately so long as those practices comply with U.S. law.
Any federal proposal specifically targeting religious practice would also face significant First Amendment questions.
But conservatives pushing anti-Sharia measures have argued their objective is not restricting private religious belief.
Instead, they say they want explicit safeguards to ensure that no religious or foreign legal code imposes itself when it conflicts with constitutional rights.
The issue has gained additional political attention because of El-Sayed’s campaign in Michigan.
Vice President JD Vance recently hammered the Democratic Senate nominee over remarks El-Sayed delivered during a 2022 Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet in Oklahoma.
“The same exact forces that drove native peoples from their land two centuries ago, destroyed Black Wall Street a century ago, bombed a building decades ago and tried to ban Sharia law not a decade ago, those forces are alive and well today,” El-Sayed said at the time.
“The reason I wanted to go all the way back to the 1830s is because you can’t understand a Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears,” El-Sayed continued.
“You can’t understand the efforts to uproot Muslim Americans without understanding the Tulsa massacre. You cannot understand the challenges we face today without understanding White supremacy,” El-Sayed added.
