Three things strike me about this discussion in general. One is that the argument that debit cards are taking over anyway has value only to those who have enough money to maintain a bank account. The second is that the impact on those who are living close to the bone has nothing to do with what the buying power of a dollar or dime was when the nation was founded and everything to do with the effect on their cost of living in the present. The third is that the one thing we all seem to agree upon is that it's time for the penny to go. Common ground!