Guess The New Coin Compositions

Congresspeople care about getting reelected. This will always be the case, because the ones that care about other things instead will not stay in congress. This only partly correlates with what is in the country's best interest (which is not something that can be determined objectively in any case).

Getting reelected partly involves pleasing your constituents, but is mostly about raising money for the campaign. Some efforts are periodically made to reduce the influence of money in politics, but these are opposed by the moneyed interests with all the power, and they're not anxious to give it up.

Because each congressperson represents a specific, narrow slice of the public, the needs of the constituents doesn't generally match up with the needs of the country as a whole. This explains the low approval rating of congress as a whole, but the generally high approval rating of individual congresspeople by their constituents. Everybody hates everyone else's congressperson, but "their guy is alright". What you see as pork, for instance, is somebody else's job. If a senator saves a big factory in their home state, they're locally a hero that gets a highway named after them. Elsewhere they're derided for earmarks or whatever. The results aren't always negative - it's how roads and bridges and schools get built - but the process doesn't make anyone happy.

The problem is exacerbated by gerrymandering. Much of the country is effectively disenfranchised because they live in a district with one-party rule. There are ways to improve that also, but they're not in the interest of people who are already in power, so they don't get implemented (though a few states, such as Iowa, do have anti-gerrymandering statutes that work pretty well.)

As for the coins problem, I don't think any congressman thinks getting rid of cents and nickels is going to help them get reelected. There aren't any obvious ways to raise campaign cash off of it, and there aren't a lot of voters who are going to get excited about the idea. The only potential audience are deficit hawks, and they are generally opposed to any deficit reduction measures that inconvenience them slightly or affect them in any way.

But rather than throwing up our hands and cursing the system and being player haters, we can actually play the game. There are people who would save money, aside from the mint. Specifically, this would benefit small business and banks, which would save time and money by not having to deal with these worthless tokens. As it happens, banks have lots of money and most of congress in their pockets. If we can get banks behind the idea of getting rid of small coins, it'll happen overnight.