I like this idea… put the prophet Mohammed on it, igniting a pan-Islamic fatwa against the USA’s money supply, with CNN montages of angry Muslim mobs burning American money in the streets from Casablanca to Jakarta…
This partial immolation of our currency would help curb inflation and balance our trade deficit. Until the inevitable boycotts kicked in, anyway.
I would love it if we put Rainbow Brite on our currency.
Reagan not only has an airport, he has a gigantic federal building named after him. (not the most appropriate monument, I would think.)
Bill Clinton is still alive and politically active.
Some standup comic - I think it was David Cross - pointed out that it was also kind of inappropriate to name an airport after Reagan, since he fired almost all of the air traffic controllers in 1981.
I think the first postmaster general should be on the $20 bill. What was his name again?
Actually that was a good reason to name one after him if you thought the union was completely out of line for striking illegally and paralyzing air traffic in America.
Will there be paper money in 50 years?
Ronald Reagan has a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after him, too.
If I had my way I would put Martin Luther King Jr. on money and put James Madison and Susan B. Anthony on some kind of money that actually gets used.
Clinton and Reagan . . . way too polarizing now. Maybe in 50 years. Probably longer for Clinton; that guy’s got a good 20 years of living left, easy. Who knows what he could do between now and his death.
Now Elvis on US currency . . . that we can all agree on, right?
I always thought it was precisely the right memorial for him - hugely over budget, deeply in debt, and not all that useful. (I’m not a Reagan fan, in case you hadn’t guessed.)
But there’s no reason to put RR on money. The conservatives changed the name of the airport for him, and several other things in D.C. as well. I’m waiting for the day they change the city’s name to Reaganton, District of Reagan. :rolleyes:
And Bill Clinton - while he did have the first balanced budget in a generation (or two), it is much, much, much too soon to put him on money. The idea of Clinton coupons for hookers and strippers mentioned upthread is amusing.
If we’re going to put a “new” person’s head on money, I suggest a Martin Luther King, Jr. dollar coin. Introducing it in 2018 would be great, and not that far away. Has it been forty years already since he was struck down?
ETA: Cisco, I see I’m not the only one who thinks this way!
I wouldn’t want either of them on my money. I’d say Reagan would be slightly more acceptable, just because he’s more iconic. They were both pretty bad presidents, in my opinion, and I really don’t think they deserve that kind of honor.
Neither deserves it. That said, I am resigned to seeing Reagan’s mug on a bill before I die, because the efforts to manufacture sainthood for him have been so intensely sustained.
Me, I’d like to see Mae West. And Al Capone. Quintessential Americans both.
Speaking as an outside observer, if you asked me what dead American should next go on money, I would say “Martin Luther King Jr.” every day of the week. If anyone should replace Andrew Jackson, it’s King.
Hunter S. Thompson holding a gun should satisfy people on both sides of the aisle.
Is it true many Native Americans avoid $20 bills like the plague? I remember seeing that mentioned on a TV documentary…we visited Cherokee, NC on our way back from Gatlinburg, TN, but I don’t remember seeing any signs in the stores saying “$20 bills not accepted.” Maybe many Native Americans just don’t use $20s themselves?
That said, is Jackson the most controversial figure on currency?
Oh, and I would love to see Reagan on the currency.
:: nods ::
Forget the politicians. Put musicians and philosophers and athletes and actors and preachers and scientists and poets and painters on your currency. Stop being so bloody conservative in the design and really shake things up.
Howard Zinn is a big critic of the Jackson on the 20 thing, but I don’t know if the masses(of whatever ethnicity) share his outrage.
I don’t know why they don’t change it, are there really that many people that would be upset about removing Jackson from our money? Does he have a big fan club or something?
I want to see Jack Bauer on a $24 bill.
I thought you had to be dead to be on the currency, so why the talk re Clinton? Or did I miss something in not watching the news today…
Please not Reagan–we have that nut whose sole purpose in life seems to be to put that name everywhere. Now we have a Reagan expressway here, in Chicago. Ugh. The man wasn’t anything intellectually, he was a poor leader and a good grabber of credit that didn’t belong to him. He was senile. He was smarmy. He was also not physically attractive, but apparently that holds no weight with TPTB.
How about Benjamin Harrison? Or William Henry Harrison? Truman? What about Shirley Chisolm?
I wonder if Carl Sagan could make the cut? (No jokes about the billion dollar bill, please.)
I think all presidents get that distinction eventually, or something similar - I know Carter had one and nobody’s ever going to suggest putting him on money.
I think it’s one of those things that would be hard to change because people are so used to it. There can’t be that many Jackson fans out there, but I’m sure a lot of people would start crying politicial correctness if there was an serious effort to get him off the $20.