Reagan on the new $10 bill?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-06-07-reagan-10-bill_x.htm
WASHINGTON — Former president Ronald Reagan's name has been enshrined on everything from an airport outside Washington to a turnpike in Florida to a mountain in New Hampshire. Now his most fervent fans have a new memorial in mind: the $10 bill.
Once Reagan's body has been interred on Friday, leaders of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project will launch a campaign in Congress to put Reagan's visage in the space now occupied by founding father Alexander Hamilton.
Hamilton was a nice guy and everything, but he wasn't president," says Grover Norquist, who heads the legacy project as well as an influential conservative group called Americans for Tax Reform. "As a board member of the (National Rifle Association), I can also tell you that he was a bad shot."
Hamilton may be remembered most for a fight he lost - a duel of honor against Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804 that left him fatally wounded. But Hamilton was also a Revolutionary War hero, George Washington's chief of staff, an author of the Federalist Papers and a Treasury secretary who created many of the financial and economic systems that survive today.
Unlike Reagan, however, Hamilton lacks a modern-day political constituency - one reason that the $10 bill is being targeted. The Federalist Party that Hamilton helped forge is defunct. The Republican Party that Reagan helped restore to power now controls the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who as majority whip is the No. 2-ranking Republican in the Senate, says he'll sponsor the proposal when the time is right. Robert Stevenson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says "there could be a head of steam" behind the idea, especially right after Reagan's death.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-06-07-reagan-10-bill_x.htm
WASHINGTON — Former president Ronald Reagan's name has been enshrined on everything from an airport outside Washington to a turnpike in Florida to a mountain in New Hampshire. Now his most fervent fans have a new memorial in mind: the $10 bill.
Once Reagan's body has been interred on Friday, leaders of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project will launch a campaign in Congress to put Reagan's visage in the space now occupied by founding father Alexander Hamilton.
Hamilton was a nice guy and everything, but he wasn't president," says Grover Norquist, who heads the legacy project as well as an influential conservative group called Americans for Tax Reform. "As a board member of the (National Rifle Association), I can also tell you that he was a bad shot."
Hamilton may be remembered most for a fight he lost - a duel of honor against Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804 that left him fatally wounded. But Hamilton was also a Revolutionary War hero, George Washington's chief of staff, an author of the Federalist Papers and a Treasury secretary who created many of the financial and economic systems that survive today.
Unlike Reagan, however, Hamilton lacks a modern-day political constituency - one reason that the $10 bill is being targeted. The Federalist Party that Hamilton helped forge is defunct. The Republican Party that Reagan helped restore to power now controls the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who as majority whip is the No. 2-ranking Republican in the Senate, says he'll sponsor the proposal when the time is right. Robert Stevenson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says "there could be a head of steam" behind the idea, especially right after Reagan's death.
