A lot of people like to whinge on about how much money Trump as made while in office. I generally ignore those folks. I look at the career criminals politicians like the Clintons, Obamas, and even the newer ones like AOC and such, who have made boatloads of cash while in office, and I don’t care if Trump has some stuff going. What he isn’t doing is taking a salary from the American people. What he isn’t doing is backstreet trading. I can live with it.
And then I run across this gem (H.R. 1761, designed to get a Trump faced $250 bill released). I have one word for this: NO.
When we founded this country (you know, 250 years ago, the very thing we’re celebrating this year), our Founders decided that we should not at any time have living presidents on currency. They had a lot of reasons for that, but the biggest was to avoid the appearance of America being a monarchy. Washington refused several times to be on coins. A law forbidding the minting of coins with living persons on it was enacted in 1866 (just after the Civil War ended). In practice, we didn’t even see a coin with a dead president on it until 1909, when they minted the Lincoln cent (for his 100th birthday).
Has the law been broken? Well, yes and no. It hasn’t been broken, in that no one has minted a coin with a living person’s image on it without permission of Congress, so no law was broken. Congress has given permission a couple of times. The first time was Calvin Coolidge, who was president during the Sesquicentennial (Cited from: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ever-wonder-why-only-dead-presidents-people-are-on-u-s-coins.261976/) or 150th anniversary of our country’s founding. He didn’t take center stage, but shared the coin with George Washington, and was behind Washington in the actual imprint.
The other notable exception was that the treasury minted a JFK half dollar only a year after Kennedy’s death. But he was still dead.
I know Trump thinks the world of himself. He’s very self centered, while still being able to be a decent leader. I like that he has used his strengths to make our country better. While I don’t think that his face on legal tender will make the country fall apart, I do FIRMLY believe that our current laws should be left the hell alone. HR 1761 wants to abolish the rule stating only dead presidents can be on currency, while also putting Trump’s face on a $250 bill.
As I said on FaceBook when a friend brought it up, “I like Trump just fine, but I also like that we don’t put living presidents faces on money, even commemorative stuff. This is not a good thing imo. And the easiest way to tell that this is not a good thing is to ask myself, would I want a Democratic president to do this? The answer is no. I don’t want to have the face of a living Democratic president on money that might pass through my hands. Now I know we can say that it’s unlikely that I will ever hold $250 bill in my hand, but it is what it is. This is not a precedent or a law that I would like to break. It’s a bad idea.”
Look, there are a lot of things we could be doing. I, for one, would like to know what DOGE is doing right now. I’d like to get our men and women out of Iraq. I’d like to see us move to a peacetime setting at home (as much as is possible). Let’s focus on fixing the education system. Work on the economy. Release the Epstein Files. There’s SO MUCH he and the government could be doing.
Instead, now he’s bugging Congress to turn over long-standing stuff that has good reason to be there. Is this really the moment we want to talk about putting living faces on currency? Why? I have to ask: what is it being used to distract from? Argh.
If we want to truly commemorate our country’s 250th birthday, fine. Let’s issue a 250th coin or bill, sure. But why not use names that were a PART OF that amazing day? People who’ve never made it onto currency before? Betsy Ross. Nathaniel Greene. James Forten. James Lafayette. It’s not like there aren’t a TON of people who were integral to the founding and formation of this country, who could grace a coin or bill. Sigh… I do not like this hill, and I am not willing to die on it. But I’m also ridiculously tired of reporting people who are saying that since only dead people are on money, they should off Trump. Because frankly, that’s the next step in this. And I DO NOT LIKE IT.
I am with you on this one, but for a bit of a different reason. Your justifications are perfect, but I think there is more.
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Mainly, it is not up to the individual to decide they deserve this kind of an honor. That decision belongs to others, and generally after some time has passed.
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I am perfectly OK with Trump putting his name on everything his businesses do. It is a brand as much as a last name. But, when it comes to governance and public facilities, I cannot support his attempts to put the Trump name on everything. I do not care that it was his initiative to renovate the Kennedy Center, he should not have added his name to it. If Congress said to add his name, fine. It is “someone else” making that decision, not the individual seeking the honor.