Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke is “appalled” by the Treasury Department’s decision to “demote” Alexander Hamilton from the ten dollar bill.
“I must admit I was appalled to hear of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s decision last week to demote Alexander Hamilton from his featured position on the ten dollar bill,” Bernanke wrote on the Brookings blog.
Citing Hamilton’s history as the first Secretary of the Treasury and as one of the Founding Fathers of our country, Bernanke described him as, “without doubt the best and most foresighted economic policymaker in U.S. history.”
He pointed to Hamilton’s role in creating the precursors to the Federal Reserve, including the chartering of the First Bank of the United States in 1791.
Bernanke suggested that Andrew Jackson be demoted from the twenty dollar bill, as he helped destroy the Second Bank of the United States, which Bernanke argued helped worsen the financial panic of 1837.
Bernanke gloomily admitted that the decision made by Lew would be difficult to walk back, citing government bureaucracy.
“I was in government long enough to know that decisions like this have considerable bureaucratic inertia and are accordingly hard to reverse,” he said. “But the Treasury Department should do everything within its power to defend the honor of Jack Lew’s most illustrious predecessor.”