Washington – Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Wednesday he’s gotten more than a million responses to his request for comments on how U.S. currency should be redesigned and recommendations for what woman should become the first female on U.S. paper money in more than a century.
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Lew said it has been a “remarkable outpouring” of everything from tweets and retweets to handwritten letters. He said among the “interesting commentary” are suggestions to replace some of the buildings now on the currency with more direct depictions of the democracy theme that will be used in the redesign.
Lew set off a furor in June by announcing a redesign of the $10 bill that would replace the portrait of Alexander Hamilton with a woman.
Lew said a decision is still expected “in the very near future.” Lew said while a woman’s portrait will be placed on the $10 bill, Hamilton will still be honored in some way.
“I have been very clear that it is about time that we have a woman reflected on our paper currency,” Lew told reporters at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
He said the redesign of the $10 bill will be just the first in a series of redesigns of the currency to make the U.S. bills safer against the newest forms of counterfeiting.
The aim is to make an announcement of what woman will go on the $10 bill by this fall with the total redesign completed by 2020, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
Treasury has created a website, www.thenew10.treasury.gov , where the public can submit suggestions.
The Obama Administration top picks are:
1. Valerie Jarret (Obama’s Puppeteer in the White House)
2. Diana Oughton (Bill Ayers Girlfriend killed in weatherman bombing)
3.Sandra Fluke (addressed Dem Convention 2012 Free Birth Control)
4. Madeline Murray O’Hare (founder of atheist movement y’s)
6.Toni Cade Bambara (Black Radical Feminist Lesbian Felon)
7. Marian Shields Robinson (Michelle Obama’s mother)
8. Helen Thomas (AP Reporter of 7 Presidents )
9. Phyllis Lyon ( First out of the closet Lesbian activist 1953)
10.Tawana Brawly (Black Female falsely claimed was raped by Police)
It would have been nice if the article explained why this set off a furor. It wasn’t about putting a woman on a bill; it was about replacing the portrait on the $10 instead of the $20. Alexander Hamilton was a great American hero. He was our first Secretary of the Treasury who proposed the founding of the US mint and our own national currency. Andrew Jackson, who is on the $20, violated US treaties with native tribes and an explicit Supreme Court ruling and sent the native populations of Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas on the Long Walk to Oklahoma. Thousands died. In addition, Jackson was opposed to paper money itself. The objection many of us have is keeping a person who committed genocide and hated paper money on our currency and removing the image of a truly great American.
Had a dollar accompanied every suggestion, they could probably have funded the whole replacement project. “Crowd-sourcing” government programs and projects through Kickstarter and similar sites might be a viable complement to taxation. 🙂