一分錢問題：特朗普總統可以通過社交媒體殺死它嗎？

在超級碗中期，唐納德·特朗普（Donald Trump）總統在社交媒體上發布了他的一分錢。

President Donald Trump recently announced on social media that he was eliminating the penny.

唐納德·特朗普總統最近在社交媒體上宣布他正在消除一分錢。

The announcement might seem practical at first glance. The lowly penny in 2024 cost about 3.7 cents to make – meaning the government loses money on every coin.

乍看之下，該公告似乎很實際。 2024年的低廉一分錢要花約3.7美分 - 這意味著政府在每枚硬幣上都損失了錢。

But does the president have the power to kill off the penny? I’m a business school professor and a longtime advocate for physical money who has written op-eds supporting the penny in The Wall Street Journal and CNN. My forthcoming book, “The Power of Cash,” explores the many advantages of using old-fashioned currency.

但是總統有權殺死一分錢嗎？我是一名商學院教授，​​也是一位長期倡導者，他寫了在《華爾街日報》和CNN中支持一分錢的專欄文章。我即將出版的書《現金的力量》探討了使用老式貨幣的許多優勢。

Yet inflation has slashed the value of the penny by a third in just the past decade, and even I now admit that its time is up.

然而，在過去的十年中，通貨膨脹已將一分錢的價值削減了三分之一，甚至我現在也承認它的時間已經到了。

But eliminating the penny via a social media post isn’t just legally dubious. It could cause more problems than it solves.

但是，通過社交媒體帖子消除便士不僅在法律上可疑。它可能導致比解決的更多問題。

Critics see the penny as a shining example of government waste. Last year, the U.S. Mint lost $85 million making pennies, according to the bureau’s annual report. It also lost about $18 million minting nickels.

批評者將一分錢視為政府浪費的閃亮例子。根據該局的年度報告，去年，美國造幣廠損失了8500萬美元的賺錢。它還損失了約1800萬美元的鑄幣鎳。

Now, to be clear, just because the mint didn’t make money on pennies or nickels doesn’t mean it’s losing money overall. In 2024, the mint earned a profit of about $100 million making the country’s pocket change. Still, $85 million is no small sum.

現在，明確的是，僅僅因為薄荷沒有用便士或鎳賺錢並不意味著它總體上損失了錢。 2024年，造幣廠賺取了約1億美元的利潤，使該國的口袋更改。儘管如此，8500萬美元還是不小。

Meanwhile, public opinion on the penny is split. Some surveys show support for it, but it has plenty of opponents. Many of my students cite carrying around “nuisance coins” like the penny as a reason for switching away from using cash.

同時，關於一分錢的公眾輿論被拆分了。一些調查顯示了對此的支持，但它有很多對手。我的許多學生都在列出像Penny這樣的“滋擾硬幣”，這是轉而使用現金的原因。

The good news, for those who dislike the penny, is that the coin is disappearing on its own. The U.S. Mint has made about 5 billion pennies annually throughout the 2020s — down from about 11 billion each year in the 1990s. So far in 2025, it has only made about a quarter of a million pennies.

對於那些不喜歡一分錢的人來說，好消息是硬幣是自行消失的。在整個2020年代，美國造幣廠每年都有約50億便士，低於1990年代每年約110億美元。到目前為止，到2025年，它只賺了大約四分之一的便士。

Setting aside people’s feelings toward the penny, the problem with the president’s order, I think, is that only Congress can change the type of coins the mint produces.

我認為，拋開人們對一分錢的感情，總統命令的問題是，只有國會才能改變造幣廠產生的硬幣類型。

To be fair, some defenders of the president’s order believe his actions are legal. But the U.S. Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8 – which gives Congress the power to do important things like levy taxes, pay debts and declare war – also authorizes Congress “to coin money.”

公平地說，一些總統命令的捍衛者認為他的行為是合法的。但是《美國憲法》第1條第8條賦予了國會徵收稅款，償還債務和宣戰等重要事情的權力 - 也授權國會“賺錢”。

Now the phrase “to coin money” is vague. To fix that, the United States’ second Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1792, which was signed into law by President George Washington. The act, which lays out how the mint operates and what it produces, says it must produce “Cents – each to be of the value of the one hundredth part of a dollar, and to contain eleven penny-weights of copper.”

現在，“幣賺錢”一詞含糊不清。為了解決這個問題，美國第二次國會通過了1792年的《造幣法》，該法案由喬治·華盛頓總統簽署為法律。該法案列出了鑄幣廠的運作方式及其產生的方式，它說必須產生“美分 - 每種都具有一美元的一百分之一的價值，並包含十一分錢的銅。”

Congress can modify this act anytime it wants – and it has. The 1792 act also required the mint to produce “Half Cents – each to be of the value of half a cent.” These coins were eliminated in 1857 by an act of Congress. Similarly, before 1965, many U.S. coins were made out of silver. After a 1965 congressional amendment to the act passed, they were made out of a cheaper composite.

國會可以隨時修改此行為，並且可以修改。 1792年的法案還要求造幣廠生產“半美分 - 每人的價值為半美分。”這些硬幣在1857年被國會法案淘汰。同樣，在1965年之前，許多美國硬幣是用銀製成的。在1965年對該法案通過的國會修正案之後，它們是由更便宜的複合材料製成的。

And lawmakers have tried several times to eliminate the penny. In 1989, for example, Arizona Rep. Jim Hayes proposed the Price Rounding Act, which called for cash purchases to be rounded to the nearest nickel. It didn’t pass. More recently, in 2017, Republican Senator John McCain introduced the COINS act, which would have eliminated the minting of pennies. The bill also proposed switching the paper one-dollar bill to a metal coin. It, too, didn’t pass.

議員們已經嘗試了幾次消除一分錢。例如，在1989年，亞利桑那州眾議員吉姆·海斯（Jim Hayes）提出了《價格匯總法》，該法案要求將現金購買到最近的鎳。它沒有通過。最近，在2017年，共和黨參議員約翰·麥凱恩（John McCain）提出了《硬幣法》，這將消除便士的鑄造。該法案還提議將紙張一美元的賬單切換為金屬硬幣。它也沒有通過。

Since Congress has failed to eliminate the penny in the past, Trump is trying to do so via a direct order to the Treasury secretary. However, many of Trump’s actions are being challenged in court.

由於國會過去未能消除一分錢，特朗普試圖通過直接向財政部長命令這樣做。但是，特朗普的許多行動都在法庭上受到挑戰。

For the sake of argument, let’s assume no one challenges the order to kill off production of the penny.

為了爭論，讓我們假設沒有人挑戰殺死一分錢生產的命令。

A big problem remains. Even if the U.S. stopped making pennies, they’d remain legal tender and people would still need them as change. In simple terms, the supply would change, but not the demand.

仍然存在一個大問題。即使美國停止賺錢，他們也會保持法定招標，人們仍然需要它們作為變化。簡而言之，供應會改變，但需求不會改變。

Past efforts to phase out the penny have tried to deal with this problem by requiring rounding, but Trump’s effort doesn’t do this. I think it’s entirely possible that people opposed to Trump would organize national “Demand your penny in change” days in an attempt to embarrass the president.

過去逐步淘汰一分錢的努力試圖通過需要捨入來解決這個問題，但特朗普的努力並沒有做到這一點。我認為反對特朗普的人們完全有可能組織民族“要求您的一分錢”日子，以使總統感到尷尬。

The U.S. government loses less than $10 million a month m

美國政府每月損失不到1000萬美元