Red County To Trump: Save Our Penny-Making Jobs

Tennessee’s Greenville Sun reports:

Eliminating the minting of new pennies could come at significant cost to Greene County. Tusculum-based Artazn LLC is the U.S. Mint’s sole supplier of cent planchets, the blank discs stamped into pennies.  The former Jarden Zinc Products was purchased in 2019 by a Los Angeles-based private equity firm. Americans for Common Cents, a pro-penny group with Artazn among its backers, stated in a January news release that eliminating the penny will not save the government money.

“Since each nickel costs nearly 14 cents to produce, this shift would drive up overall production expenses for the government. Rather than saving money, eliminating the penny would increase and redistribute financial burdens,Many Mint overhead costs would remain and have to be absorbed by other coins without the penny. Also, there would be greater demand for expensive nickels, which means even more costs,” said Mark Weller, executive director of Americans for Common Cents.

Read the full article.

GREENE COUNTY: “A deep red county in Tennessee calls on Trump to reconsider his order to stop producing pennies. Greene County, home to Artazn LLC—the maker of all of the country’s unstamped pennies, warned there will be significant job losses…” www.thedailybeast.com/deep-red-cou…

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 9:19 PM