A Modest Proposal

Let’s face it — pennies are annoying. Even if you don’t use them to clog up your sofa, it’s a pain to try to get ride of them. So this story about a thieving Home Depot automatic checkout machine on Staten Island made me think that best way to fix New York’s budget problems may be to “spare the change”:

On July 6, the reporter bought a screw priced at 56 cents. The tax was 5 cents, for a total of 61 cents. With 75 cents inserted, the receipt indicated 14 cents change due but just 12 cents popped out.

On Tuesday, the reporter bought a pack of key caps priced at $1.27. The tax was 11 cents, for a total of $1.38. The reporter put in $1.55 and got back just a nickel and two pennies.

. . .

Yesterday, a senior manager in Home Depot’s public relations division promised that a team would be dispatched to evaluate the machines’ operation.

Who knows how much money might be raised by invoking a temporary “spare the change” tax on all cash purchases. We’d see rising productivity in the retail sector — less change to count! In a time when the MTA is considering making Orwellian changes to the meaning of “unlimited”, it makes sense . . .