A Republican from North Carolina wants to erase Ulysses S. Grant's face from the fifty-dollar bill and replace him with Ronald Reagan. The New Yorker has a better idea.
The largest bill in circulation now is the C-note, but, for a couple of weeks at the height of the Great Depression (December 18, 1934-January 9, 1935), the Treasury printed up a bunch of hundred-thousand dollar bills, featuring a portrait of Woodrow Wilson. They were used for transfers between branches of the Federal Reserve Bank. Now, seventy-five years later, why not have the Treasury print a $1,300,000,000,000 bill with the Great Communicator’s face on it? It could be used to pay off the portion of the national debt run up during the Reagan Administration. Not only that, but if we printed four more Ronalds, we could cover George W. Bush’s share of the debt.