The Ecphorizer

Brown Backs Big Bucks

Neal Wilgus

Issue #70 (September 1987)

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Buck Stop, HR (LEAK) — Blovitarian presidential hopeful Jack Brown announced today a sweeping new program of currency reform which he intends to put into operation when he becomes chief executive officer. "One of my highest priorities and first official acts as president," Brown

'The 68-cent bill will have a picture of the Great Bloviator...'

announced, "will be the formation of a subcommittee to appoint a committee for the rehabilitation of money. For too long have we as a nation suffered from the debilitating effects of wrinkled and unsanitary legal tender, not to mention the lackluster color schemes and just plain plainness of the pictures on most of our bills."

[quoteright]As is widely known, Brown and the Blovitarian Party favor a greatly expanded space program because "a balanced budget would be easier in zero gravity," as the Blovitarian platform reads, and because Preparedness for Alien Contact is one of the party's platform's most important planks. As a part of this strategy the Blovitarians are calling for the present currency to be replaced by money which is 1.) Brown, 2.) one half again larger, and 3.) of lowered denomination so as to reflect a compromise between big bucks and smell change.

"Restructuring money to reflect prevailing denominations and commonly encountered prices will surely boon the economy," Brown announced, "and it sure won't hurt to put some decent pictures on all those brownbacks, too." Art collector Brown still owns the first penny he ever found and expects to see his own picture on the new 76cent one-ounce postage stamp in the near future.

"We will begin by issuing the trillions of 68cent bills to replace the old $1 bill," said Brown's special assistant Ambrose Fort in a prepared statement. "The 68-cent bill will have a picture of the Great Bloviator, Warren G. Harding on the front side, and on the other will be a mystic scroll reading 'E Pluribus Blovitarium,' above a scene of the family picnic on a river bank. The Normalistic wing of the Blovitarian Party insisted on this last bit and we all agree it adds just the right touch of normalcy."

To replace the old fiver, Fort said, Brown's panel of experts, the Skeptic Tank, has come up with a new 3.27$ bill with a picture of Millard Fillmore, backed by a sketch of Old Folly, his famous First Bathtub. On the 7.53$ bill, which will replace the old $10, will appear the portrait of Rutherford B. Hayes, with nothing on the reverse, while the old $20 bill will be replaced by the 13.65$ bill with William Henry Harrison on the front and two pictures of Grover Cleveland on the back. "Finally," Fort said, "the old $50 bill will be replaced by a 31.03$ bill showing a fine likeness of Swede Hanson on the front and the new national symbol, the nose in the pyramid, on the reverse."

Since the previous administration has already eliminated small change, the Brown camp has no plans for issuing coins of any kind. Also to be eliminated will be the recent postage stamps with portraits of the surviving presidents, due to flaws in the stamps. "The Nixon stamp," Fort said, "kept trying to break into the envelopes, the Ford stamps kept falling off, the Carter stamp didn't do anything but get more expensive — and the Reagan stamp keeps forgetting where it's going."

Traveler's checks with the likeness of Jack Brown himself are also being prepared, Fort said, as part of the breakaway contingency plan. These checks will also feature the nosed pyramid and the motto "Who Knows? Brown Knows!," along with the cryptic message "liberatium Lottus Parkundum!" Long range plans also include provisions for adding the faces of Harding, Fillmore and Brown to Mt. Rushmore, Fort said. 

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