Sometimes a decision is as easy as a coin toss. The stakes are low. The outcome is variable. Heads, you win. Tails, you lose. No big deal either way.

Others may seem easy up front, but a little digging shows the process needs more care.

Take, for instance, the penny.

It’s a humble coin — the first form of U.S. currency, a copper disk worth one-hundredth of a dollar. But copper has become expensive, and what was once solid metal is now just a thin coating. Today’s pennies are mostly zinc, and each one costs almost 4 cents to produce.

We’ve known this for years. Proposals to eliminate the penny have surfaced for decades. There was even an episode of “The West Wing” featuring the fictional Legal Tender Modernization Act of 2001. Two-thirds of pennies don’t circulate; they sit in jars, couch cushions and fountains.

Ending the penny makes sense.

So when President Donald Trump announced in February that he was halting production, there was little uproar. Who uses pennies anyway? Round up or round down — it shouldn’t really make a difference.

Yeah, about that.

Government often gets accused of dragging its feet. But the slow grind of studies, protocols and procedures exists for a reason. It anticipates problems and provides backups for unintended consequences — or it should.

The U.S. Mint had no issue ending production. The problem came afterward, when no guidance followed. What happens in a world where no new pennies are minted?

Debit-card users might shrug, but millions of people and businesses still rely on cash. What happens when you need a penny and there are none available?

Retailers like Giant Eagle were already feeling the pinch. Stores can’t just short customers a cent, but changing every price to multiples of five — especially with sales tax — isn’t that simple. The company responded by buying pennies from customers at double their value, exchanging jars and bags of coins for gift cards.

That’s creative. But Giant Eagle had the flexibility to make its own rules. Not every business can.

The idea of eliminating the penny wasn’t the problem. The lack of structured execution was.

The process should have been organized and well designed so the absence of pennies went unnoticed. It could have been seamless. Instead, pulling the plug left the economy sputtering like an engine out of gas.

There should have been a timeline, a transition plan and clear communication — all the things that should accompany any government action. Ignoring that is like skipping the directions when assembling a lawnmower: blindly faithful and potentially dangerous.

Even small changes require a penny’s worth of thought.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)