Reagan on the dime?

[gdl96]

House Tossup In Dime Design
Reagan Suggested To Replace FDR
By Jim Geraghty
States News Service
Monday, December 8, 2003; Page A23


Now it can be revealed what the hot debate was on the floor of the House of Representatives during that three-hour vote on the Medicare bill last month: What president's profile is on the dime?



With all the House members in one place, an idea for legislation and time to kill, Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.) spent many of those hours asking his colleagues to support a bill to put Ronald Reagan's face on the 10-cent coin. He gathered more than 80 cosponsors -- and learned that many of the lawmakers were not all that clear about who is on the dime now. (It is Franklin D. Roosevelt.)

"One member insisted to me the whole night that Roosevelt's not on the dime, it's Eisenhower," Souder said. "We went around looking for a dime to resolve it."

Since 1946, the dime has featured Roosevelt, the nation's longest-serving chief executive.

When Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) caught wind of Souder's idea, he introduced a bill to keep FDR on the coin, and has so far gathered 52 cosponsors.

McGovern said he admires Reagan but that changing the dime is the wrong way to honor him.

"He served this country with distinction, and he has received many honors," McGovern said. "National Airport is now named after him, as is a major federal building in Washington, and schools, roads and bridges around the country. . . . I'm not quite sure that to honor Reagan you have to dishonor Roosevelt."

McGovern points out that FDR is on the dime because of a specific connection to the coin. In 1937, Roosevelt founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, a group that raised funds to find a cure for polio. The next year, comedian Eddie Cantor asked Americans to mail dimes to the White House to help the foundation. The donations were referred to as a "March of Dimes," a name that stuck to the foundation.

"Maybe part of this is to intentionally diminish Frank Roosevelt's importance in history in our country as a way to try to erase from our discourse a man who believed government could be a force for good," McGovern said.

Souder said he does not want to diminish FDR, and added he is not sure the Reagan family would want to be seen as removing a president who was a great influence on Reagan himself. Souder said he is open to the idea of having the two presidents split the dimes produced each year. In 2003, that was more than 1.6 billion coins.

Grover Norquist, chairman of the Reagan Legacy Project, who thinks that Reagan and FDR should each be featured on half the dimes produced each year, also says the change would not be dishonoring FDR.

"When we put Kennedy on the half-dollar, we dropped Ben Franklin," he said. "That wasn't dissing Ben Franklin."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Dec7.html

Dumbest idea I've ever heard. Reagan wasn't even that great of a president. Especially when you compare his accomplishments to FDR's.

Discuss.