Comment by dragonwriter
4 hours ago
>These problems can't be legislated away
Yes, they can.
> because the authority to do so is highly decentralized.
So are the problems. And the places where the problems are localized to are the ones with the power to legislate them away. An abrupt elimination of the penny, such as them being immediately banned for use or withdrawn from circulation, would present a problem, sure, but stopping minting them while leaving them in circulation provides a combination of time to find a solution and urgency to implement it; and the problems aren't difficult to solve, there are lots of easy solutions (there's no fundamental difference in the challenges of the quantum of cash being $0.05 that are different from it being $0.01, there's just a few options in how to handle the transition) and all that is necessary is for each jurisdiction to pick one.
The urgency is quite irrelevant. In many locales you will still have to ask voters for permission and/or have a constitutional referendum in addition to having the local legislature acquiesce. All of those parties can do whatever they want and a large percentage of them don't understand and DGAF. This dynamic plays out over and over for countless issues, this is no different.
In the meantime, tax authorities will require compliance as the law demands without any regard for another tax authority requiring something different.
I'd be perfectly happy for pennies to disappear but I am not ignorant of the realpolitik that makes implementation nearly impossible. Wishful thinking won't make it so.