Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) on Monday backed President Trump’s direction to halt penny production, calling it a “great move.”
On Sunday, Trump announced that he had requested that the Treasury Department stop producing pennies.
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
Polis said the move was also environmentally friendly in a response to Trump on the social platform X.
“As well as saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, there are major environmental benefits to eliminating the penny. This is a great move,” Polis said.
In fiscal 2024, the cost of making a penny was close to 3.7 cents, the 19th consecutive fiscal year the coin has cost more face value to make, according to an annual report from the U.S. Mint.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), also went after the penny on X last month.
“The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023. The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in FY2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced. Penny (or 3 cents!) for your thoughts,” DOGE said.
Pennies are mostly made of zinc, along with some copper. The U.S. Mint said in its annual report that it lost $85.3 million on the nearly 3.2 billion pennies it produced in fiscal 2024.
Former President Obama backed eliminating the penny as far back as 2013.
“This is not going to be a huge savings for government, but anytime we’re spending more money on something that people don’t actually use, that’s an example of something we should probably change,” Obama said at the time.
Polis raised eyebrows after November’s election when he came out in qualified support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Polis faced blowback from Kennedy’s critics and others in the Democratic Party, who have raised concerns about the outspoken anti-vaccine activist leading the U.S. public health system.
“I was raised in a way where I try to look at the glass as half-full,” Polis said in November when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash about Kennedy’s record on vaccines.
A spokesperson for the governor said he supported some of Kennedy’s priorities around healthier food systems and reducing environmental toxins.
