Paul Sassone

It’s too bad James Buchanan, or Calvin Coolidge, or Richard Nixon don’t grace the face of our currency.

Then it would be easy to bump one of them and replace him with Harriet Tubman.

But, that isn’t the case.

The faces on our money are among the most significant figures in American history.

But during his term, President Barack Obama thought it would be a good idea to make the faces on our money more inclusive by adding African-American abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who led many fugitive slaves to freedom.

To do that, someone had to go. First thought was Alexander Hamilton.

But that idea was scrapped. After all, Hamilton had his own hit Broadway musical.

The sacrifice most mentioned was Andrew Jackson, who would be demoted to the rear of $20 bills while Harriet Tubman received pride of place on the front.

Jackson — a two-term president and military hero — had a couple of strikes against him. He was a slaveholder. And his policies toward native Americans can best be described as paternalistic, culture-crushing segregation.

On the other hand, Jackson also was a true democrat who worked tirelessly to give ordinary (white) Americans a share in voting and governing. He also beat back the first serious attempt by Southerners to assert a right to secede from the union and thus destroy the United States.

So, maybe we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to dump Jackson.

Yet honoring Tubman and including women and African-Americans is a good idea.

So, perhaps we need to look at the question in a different way.

The faces on our money don’t need changing. What needs to change is our money.

Our money is too small.

Look at how much stuff costs today. Bills for $1, $5 and even $10 don’t buy much.

Yet we still have the same bill denominations the U.S. has had for much of its history.

We need bigger denominations for the bigger costs of today.

A $30 bill would come in handy. And even a $75 bill would be useful.

And if we created additional bill denominations Tubman could be added and Jackson could stay.

But we still would not need Buchanan, Coolidge or Nixon.

–Changing faces on our currency not an easy task–