Should Ronald Reagan Be on a $50 Bill?

Yahoo! News reported Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, has introduced legislation asking the Treasury to boot President Ulysses Grant from his place on our $50 bills and replace him with President Ronald Reagan's portrait instead. McHenry is not alone in his thoughts, as his bill has 13 Republican co-sponsors. Rep. Patrick McHenry's reasoning for replacing Grant's picture on the $50 bill with Ronald Reagan's is thus: "Every generation needs its own heroes." A fine notion, but do our heroes have to be Republicans?

Arguments against Ronald Reagan on a $50 bill

Anyone who has read past articles about politics knows that my ideology is firmly in the Republican territory. One would think a staunch Republican would jump on the "put Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill" bandwagon, but when I read the news report about the proposed bill, I was put off. Sure, he was pivotal to the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall coming down and bringing our nation back from a recession. But was he so great that he deserves to replace Grant on our nation's currency?

Why Grant? Why not Ben Franklin? Surely Ronald Reagan was so great that he should replace the portrait of a framer, rather than a Civil War general. For that matter, why not bring back the $500 bill? President McKinley's portrait graces that bill. It is now a rare bill and is not seen in circulation, but in auction houses and numismatic collections. With the cost of goods rising, why not bring back that large bill? It would make paying for groceries a lot easier than peeling off several $50s.

How about a little bipartisanship?

Grant, Lincoln, and McKinley were all Republicans. Andrew Jackson, featured on the $20 bill, is the only Democrat that appears on bills in circulation. If we are going to place a new face on our $50 bill, then why not try a little bipartisanship and come up with a few good Democratic heroes to grace our currency?

Might I suggest Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led our country during World War II and got our nation back on its feet after the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression? Considering the trying economic times and the media referring to our nation's economic crisis as "the Great Recession", perhaps FDR is an excellent choice to be featured on a $50 bill. Even his cousin, Teddy, appears on the Roosevelt dime! Surely FDR is worthy of appearing on such a large bill.

John F. Kennedy would also be a good choice. A war hero before he was president, JFK had the vision to move forward with space exploration. He steered our country away from a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile crisis. Surely JFK would be a good enough Democrat to grace a $50 bill?

Sources:
http://www.mapsofworld.com/us-presidents/republican-us-presidents.html
http://www.mapsofworld.com/us-presidents/democrat-us-presidents.html