Looks like I spoke too soon! Apparently the U.S. Mint is not going to make any more of the Presidential $1 Coins for circulation, check out this article from three weeks ago: “Treasury to stop producing unneeded dollar coins“.
The Administration will still be required, by law, to continue to produce a relatively small number of the coins to be sold to collectors, at no cost to taxpayers. Instead of producing 70-80 million coins per President, the United States Mint will now only produce as many as collectors want.
The program was only 20 Presidents deep when it was canceled, but there is still a 1.4 billion coin backlog hanging out in Federal Reserve Bank vaults.
The real losers are the fans of Chester A. Arthur; his coin is coming out February 16, 2012, but only to collectors.