Washington – In an act of complete chutzpah, Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has proposed legislation, H.R. 4705, to redesign the face of the $50 bill to include the likeness of the 40th President, Ronald Reagan.
Removing Ulysses S. Grant's image from the $50 bill is surely intended to help people forget that the Union won the Civil War and ended slavery. As the hero of the modern 'states rights' movement, which seems to favor imposition of the Confederate Constitution, Reagan has replaced Grant in the hearts of Republicans.
However, passage of H.R. 4705 is unlikely unless the Republicans retake the House of Representatives in 2012. (There is only an infinitesimal chance of their doing so in 2010.)
Meantime, amendments deserved by H.R. 4705 include:
* restoring the name of Reagan National Airport to National Airport
* renaming the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building as the Martin Luther King Building
* designation of a single, trash-filled automobile parking space at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Memorial as the (Joint) George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush Presidential Memorial(s)
* provision for the annual dropping, on the anniversary of the Tet Offensive, of a helicopter load of napalm on the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Grove located next to the Pentagon
* placement of the image of Richard M. Nixon on the three dollar bill