The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about but that often don't get the right news coverage.
Trump reportedly tips his Mar-a-Lago groundskeepers with $100 bills. What if his own face appeared on them?
What The Bills Do
Two different proposals in the House would put Trump’s face on money.
The Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act would create a new $250 bill, tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence signing in 2026. It was introduced on February 27 by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC2).
The Golden Age Act would replace Benjamin Franklin with Trump on the $100 bill starting in 2029. (All existing $100 bills depicting Franklin would still be legal but the government just wouldn’t print any more.) It was introduced on March 3 by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX26).
Neither legislation appears to have a Senate companion introduced yet.
Context
Seven prominent Americans are depicted on the main U.S. bills: George Washington on the $1, Thomas Jefferson on the $2, Abraham Lincoln on the $5, Alexander Hamilton on the $10, Andrew Jackson on the $20, Ulysses S. Grant on the $50, and Benjamin Franklin on the $100.
The last personnel change to one of those bills was in 1928 when Jackson replaced Grover Cleveland on the $20.
Since then, Congress has named or renamed various things after living ex-presidents, like renaming the D.C. area’s Washington National Airport as the Ronald Reagan Airport in 1998 or renaming the EPA’s headquarters as the Bill Clinton Federal Building in 2013. But none of those were renamed after incumbent presidents.
In this digital age of credit cards, plus apps and websites like Venmo, PayPal, and CashApp, cash transactions represent a sharply declining share of monetary transactions: plunging from 31% of payments in 2016 to 18% in 2022.
What Supporters Say
Supporters argue that Trump deserves his spot alongside the seven prominent Americans, five of them former presidents, currently appearing on paper money.
“President Trump is working tirelessly to fight inflation and help American families. This achievement is deserving of currency recognition, which is why I am grateful to introduce this legislation,” Rep. Wilson said in a press release. “The most valuable bill for the most valuable president!”
“President Trump… took a bullet for this country and is now working overtime to secure our border, fix our uneven trade relationship with the rest of the world, make America energy independent again, and put America first by ending useless foreign aid,” Rep. Gill said in a press release. “Featuring him on the $100 bill is a small way to honor all he will accomplish these next four years.”
What Opponents Say
Obviously, Democrats oppose putting Trump’s face on money at all. But other opponents counter with alternative points.
For example, some say the U.S. should eliminate the $100 bill entirely. “Let’s abolish the $100 bill,” Timothy Noah wrote in the New Republic. “Benjamins are the favorite currency of criminals and almost no one else—and there’s no good reason to go on printing them.”
“Since 1980, the proportion of $100 bills that reside outside the U.S. has risen from 30% to nearly 80%,” Noah added. “The overwhelming majority of those who possess these bills are criminals of one kind or another who want to stash their money overseas.”
(Presumably, the same argument could be used against creating a $250 bill too.)
Another argument: an 1866 law prevents people from appearing on U.S. money while they’re still alive. Congress passed the law after Spencer Clark, superintendent of the National Currency Bureau, put his own face on the five-cent note.
The $250 legislation would also repeal that 1866 law, though the $100 legislation would not.
Odds of Passage
The $250 legislation has attracted three Republican cosponsors. It awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee, controlled by Republicans.
The $100 legislation has also attracted three Republican cosponsors —though, interestingly, completely distinct from the three who cosponsored the $250 legislation. It also awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee.
Perhaps a more likely outcome: the Treasury Department may just unilaterally make such a decision, rather than Congress.
In 2016, President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Due to a combination of slow-walking and bureaucratic delays by the Trump administration in the production design process, though, the Tubman bill isn’t expected to debut until around 2030.
Jesse Rifkin is a freelance journalist with the Fulcrum. Don’t miss his weekly report, Congress Bill Spotlight, every Friday on the Fulcrum. Rifkin’s writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
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