A $2 Coin With Ronald Reagan?

I agree.

The only reason why the Twenty Cent coin failed is that the quarter dollar remained.

Had the Twenty Cent coin replaced our quarter dollar, eliminating the nickel would be so much easier to do.

I wouldn't do a $2 coin. It would only have purpose to buy a candy bar, the same idea as having a $7 or $14 bill.

If we're going to add a $2 coin and make the $5 bill the smallest paper money (like Canada), I say we bite the bullet and go all the way. Get rid of pennies AND nickels. Round everything to a tenth of a dollar. When I was a kid and gasoline was 33.9c per gallon, we rounded to the nearest penny and a stick of gum was a penny. Now gas is $3.39 (and 9/10) per gallon and a piece of gum is at least a dime. Why do we STILL round to the penny?!?

If we eliminate nickels, that means no more quarters, either. So bring back the 20c piece!

Here's the plan:

dime: Roosevelt (no change to size)
20c coin: Washington (size of old penny)
50c coin: Kennedy (size of old nickel)
$1 coin: Lincoln (size of old quarter)
$2 coin: Jefferson (size of old half)

We had " Half Dimes", but they were too small, so we ended up with nickels larger than dimes. The old silver dollar was just too big for the pocket when Ike came out, so we ended up with SBAs like quarters. The above plan provides coin sizes we are all comfortable with, and we don't lose any presidents from coins. Lincoln would be the only one on coins and paper money with this plan, so I guess we could put Teddy Roosevelt on the $5 bill. I have never understood my a President that is enshrined on Mt. Rushmore isn't on ANY money when Washington has the quarter and the one, Jefferson has the nickel and the two, and Lincoln has the penny and the five.

Of course we would change the size of everything but the dime a LITTLE to prevent counterfeiting in vending machines, and there would have to be a migration from "old" coins to "new" coins (except dimes) in vending machines, toll boothes, etc., but they have to deal with that anyway when new coin sizes are introduced. It would also be a challenge for cash registers, gas pumps, computer programs, etc. to round to a tenth of a dollar instead of a hundredth of a dollar, but it would be a one-off event that pays dividends in the long-run.

The nice thing is that dimes will make the transition without change, so they could be the "bridge" coins. As a matter of fact, we could get Taggert, from Blazing Saddles, as a spokesperson:

*** Link removed by the staff. Video is not appropriate for our community. ***

The Dirty little secret about pennies is that they are required to make it possible to pay for fractional taxes, most specifically Sales Taxes. Here in NY State and New York City both entities charge 4.45% sales tax for a combined levy of 8.9% which does get rounded-up to 9 cents on the dollar, but for smaller amounts the total of the sales takes requires pennies, or nickels.

You're doomed by the high cost of printing currency compared to minting coins, not so much in the actual production, but the coins last much, much longer and the savings adds up. The CBO estimates the US could save $55 billion over 10 years if they killed the $1 bill and replaced it with the $1 coin, and that doesn't count all the money saved if we weren't paying to warehouse the billions in $1 coins.

The economics will eventually will eventually be too hard to ignore, especially in this cost cutting environment.

Canadian GST is an even 5% - the Conservatives brought it down from 7% a few years ago, probably part of the great penny-crushing conspiracy. But in almost every province (except mine) there's PST on top of that, usually totaling around the more awkward 12%.

The amounts are always rounded AFTER tax... (and how did we ever do this math without the half-cent?)

DavidFNYC,

Can you provide the pre-tax total and the tax charged on the first 10 receipts you looked at?

Just about every tax calculation is rounded to the nearest penny and generally there are about as many rounded up as rounded down. If the tax rate were rounded to the nearest dime, there would still be as many rounded up as down and the amount of tax paid for several transactions would be roughly the same. The big difference is small transactions. Right now, you have to pay tax on any purchase over five cents. If tax was rounded to the nearest dime, you would not pay tax unless the total was over fifty cents.