Tuesday, June 08, 2004
A proposal for America's currency
It looks like the Republicans are going to push for putting Reagan on the currency.
I should start by saying I oppose this: for his many failures and misdeeds, Reagan does not deserve this signal honor. Moreover, it is an intentional affront to the many citizens who view Reagan's legacy as mostly negative. My preferences would be to leave the currency as is.
That said, it sounds like the Republicans are putting together a clever strategy for getting Reagan on at least one piece of currency (most likely the 10 dollar bill). They will make at least three separate proposals, in the hope that one will seem inoffensive enough to pass.
The only way the Dems can stop this is a fillibuster, and many will shy from such action, fearing they will look mean-spirited (though I think it would be justified).
So what the Dems need is their own clever strategy. Here it is: Concede that some of the faces on our currency could use updating, but note that Reagan is a controversial figure. We can add him, but we need to maintain balance and diversity at the same time; it's only fair and best represents the nation as a whole. So update two bills: one to Reagan, and the other to, say, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Many will say this is an affront to one or the other of the pair---and in a sense that is the point. Under the new model, the currency should reflect the spectrum of American heros, while implicitly recognizing that different Americans have different views about who the "real" heroes are that haven't been resolved.
Under this approach, it is the Republicans who risk looking mean-spirited or intolerant by opposing MLK. And it transforms the debate over memorializing MLK from a largely local one, which the Republicans fight in strategically chosen places, into a national one, in which it will be much harder to make racial-coded appeals without looking, well, racist.
If the Democrats think a Reagan currency is a near-term inevitability, they better get something out of it---and they can, by turning the wedge issue around on the Republicans.
To be extra fair, why not replace old heros of a given stripe with new ones? With a fair amount of license, this suggests switching the early champion of capitalism, Alexander Hamiliton, with the newer Reagan, and the early founder of the Democratic party, Andrew Jackson, with the newer MLK, who helped the Democrats atone for their sins on America's great issue of race.
It's worth a try.
I should start by saying I oppose this: for his many failures and misdeeds, Reagan does not deserve this signal honor. Moreover, it is an intentional affront to the many citizens who view Reagan's legacy as mostly negative. My preferences would be to leave the currency as is.
That said, it sounds like the Republicans are putting together a clever strategy for getting Reagan on at least one piece of currency (most likely the 10 dollar bill). They will make at least three separate proposals, in the hope that one will seem inoffensive enough to pass.
The only way the Dems can stop this is a fillibuster, and many will shy from such action, fearing they will look mean-spirited (though I think it would be justified).
So what the Dems need is their own clever strategy. Here it is: Concede that some of the faces on our currency could use updating, but note that Reagan is a controversial figure. We can add him, but we need to maintain balance and diversity at the same time; it's only fair and best represents the nation as a whole. So update two bills: one to Reagan, and the other to, say, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Many will say this is an affront to one or the other of the pair---and in a sense that is the point. Under the new model, the currency should reflect the spectrum of American heros, while implicitly recognizing that different Americans have different views about who the "real" heroes are that haven't been resolved.
Under this approach, it is the Republicans who risk looking mean-spirited or intolerant by opposing MLK. And it transforms the debate over memorializing MLK from a largely local one, which the Republicans fight in strategically chosen places, into a national one, in which it will be much harder to make racial-coded appeals without looking, well, racist.
If the Democrats think a Reagan currency is a near-term inevitability, they better get something out of it---and they can, by turning the wedge issue around on the Republicans.
To be extra fair, why not replace old heros of a given stripe with new ones? With a fair amount of license, this suggests switching the early champion of capitalism, Alexander Hamiliton, with the newer Reagan, and the early founder of the Democratic party, Andrew Jackson, with the newer MLK, who helped the Democrats atone for their sins on America's great issue of race.
It's worth a try.
