Discontinuing the penny is obviously an important thing (otherwise, we'd have been done talking about it by now). It is always best that important government m

Discontinuing the penny is obviously an important thing (otherwise, we'd have been done talking about it by now). It is always best that important government moves are done in public, with processes that are replete with discourse and understanding, instead of with surprises and confusion. Ideally, the government would had resolved the (present-day, recently-introduced, inevitable, foreseeable) conflict with SNAP benefits and come up with a single-page, large-print summary that uniformly defined how rounding at the checkout counter works in ways that regular people conducting regular transactions would be able to comprehend and follow. These details certainly all need to be figured out at some point, and sooner would be better than later: We should have started figuring it out years (perhaps even a decade) ago. Unfortunately, we did not take that path. Discontinuing the penny could have been a very orderly nothingburger wherein everyone (on all sides of the cash register) knew exactly what to expect, and exactly when to expect it. But but we didn't do it that way. So instead, we now we have an element of surprise and confusion instead of simplicity.