According to the US Mint Annual Report (2010), the production cost of one US penny (1.0 cents) is 1.7 cents. In addition, the estimated lost productivity for transactions using pennies is $300 million per year. Pennies are wasteful, useless, and billions of dollars could be saved by this simple measure.
The only reason the penny is still around is the lack of political will to get it done, but doing it shows a strong commitment to budget issues, and is a simple measure to save billions.