Treasury Secretary Wants to Dump Pennies

MARTIN CRUTSINGER
Associated Press
February 29, 2008

A penny for your thoughts? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson thinks the answer to that question should be not much. In fact, if he had his way, he would like to get rid of the penny.

Asked Friday whether he thought the penny should be eliminated, Paulson agreed that it would make sense, saying, “The penny is worth less than any other currency.”

However, he quickly added that he didn’t think it was “politically doable” to eliminate the one-cent coin and it wasn’t something he planned to tackle in the final year of the Bush administration.

“I’ve got enough challenges to take on,” he said in an interview on the “Spike O’Dell Show” on Chicago’s WGN radio.

O’Dell also asked Paulson, who made a fortune as the head of investment giant Goldman Sachs before joining the Bush Cabinet, how much money he carried in his pocket.

“I walk around with very little cash in my pocket,” he said, depending instead on credit cards “like everyone else.”

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This article was posted: Friday, February 29, 2008 at 10:12 am

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