By CoinWeek News Staff …..
On Tuesday, February 25, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC2) announced on X that he intended to introduce legislation to create a $250 bill featuring a portrait of 47th President Donald J. Trump. The post, which included an AI-generated mockup of a “Trump $250 note”, claims that “Bidenflation” destroyed the economy and is forcing Americans to carry more cash.
Statistics regarding the cash-carrying habits of Americans shows a downward trend in cash usage from pre-Pandemic levels. According to a report published in May 2024 by the Federal Reserve, the number of transactions involving cash payments had decreased to about 16%.
One aspect of the potential utility of a $250 bill (or $200 bill) is that the $100 Federal Reserve Note is the most heavily produced note in circulation. This did not happen under 46th President Joe Biden, however, as the $100 bill overtook the $1 in 2017. Most of these bills are held as a reserve currency and it makes sense for the Federal Government to consider the production of even higher denomination notes–so long as they can stay ahead of the increasingly sophisticated counterfeiting operations of state actors like North Korea.
Wilson doesn’t address any of these issues in his social media post – or in the rather barebones bill, for that matter, a screenshot of which he also posted on X.
If passed, the $250 bill would follow the reintroduced $2, which was released to mark the nation’s 200th birthday. The most recent effort to overhaul the nation’s currency, which included replacing seventh President Andrew Jackson with abolitionist Harriet Tubman, was shelved during Trump’s first term and not revisited (despite promises) during the Biden Administration.
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