A Modest Proposal On The Currency

One of the biggest long-term problems with American money is that dollar bills wear out quickly, but no one likes the dollar coin.

If we could get enough dollar coins into circulation to replace the dollar bill, we'd save billions of dollars per year. And if we could add a $2 coin to the mix, that would also be easier. We might even retire the penny.

Previous attempts to create a $1 coin, with Sacajaweja and Susan B. Anthony, failed because conservatives just refused to use them, and in time so did everyone else. The women didn't sell.

But you know what would sell?

Ronald Reagan would sell. A $1 coin with the Gipper on the front and maybe his Simi Valley museum on the back would be snapped up by conservatives like lemonade on a hot day. Once conservatives started spending the $1 coin and rejecting the bill, the bill could even be retired — that's the aim of the game, after all.

Now that half our problem is solved, what about the $2 coin?

Liberals are going to want something. They'll probably scream to put FDR on it, even though he's already on the dime. And he belongs on the dime — the March of Dimes was originally created to fight polio, which crippled him and made him a great man.

But conservatives are not going to buy another Susan B. Anthony. We need something that's going to be pretty non-controversial, where we can sneak the woman in the back door, so to speak.

So, I'm thinking, why not John Adams?

For centuries Adams was our forgotten founding father. Partly because he was always a politician, partly because he signed those dreadful Alien & Sedition Acts. He was obnoxious, disliked, and controversial, always.

The musical "1776" started the comeback of his reputation, turning the Declaration of Independence into a love story, but what cemented him back into the public consciousness was probably David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of him,  followed by the HBO mini-series starring Paul Giamatti. Use the young Adams, the Revolutionary rather than the balding President.

With a young, heart-stealing Abigail on the obverse, not that doughty frump we usually see. Women would see the Abigail side, liberals would see the Abigail side, and conservatives would see the second President.

Oh, and give that $2 coin some heft, like the British two pound piece.

Problem solved.