Shine, Shine, a Roosevelt Dime: Some Republicans are lobbying to show FDR the gate and put Reagan on the dime.

Supporters of the "Ronald Reagan Dime Act" said Roosevelt and his government-expanding New Deal represented decades past, while Reagan's conservative, anti-communist administration ushered in society as it exists today.

I'm not sure political fashion should dictate whose face gets stamped onto coins, nor do I think we should give the honor to the living. That said, there is a perfectly respectable place to put Reagan's likeness: the dollar coin. The dollar coin has been a pet issue of mine for a few years. When the Sacagawea dollar was minted in 2000, I wrote a piece on it for a magazine. I complained that the old silver dollars were too big, that the Susan B. was too much like a quarter, and that the Sacagawea was just silly and, like the Susan B., not worth breaking out tradition of presidential portraits on coins. Why couldn't we instead mint a useful dollar coin -- perhaps one that is thick and distinctive, like a pound coin, rather than simply being larger in diameter?

Meanwhile, who better to front the dollar than the man who revived a moribund economy? Conservatives get their modern hero on the top-dog coin, which might actually motivate a campaign for a useful coin. And liberals always did complain that the almighty dollar ruled Reagan's tenure.