NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong.

And I'm Patty Hirsch. A plan to create a new $250 note adorned with the visage of President Donald Trump has attracted a lot of criticism and opposition.

And it's complicated. The Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the Secret Service would need to agree for it to happen.

And then there's the idea that the note would depict the president.

This would contravene a law that prohibits the likeness of any living person from appearing on U.S. currency, bonds, or securities.

So Congress would need to approve, too.

But there's one area of opposition that hasn't received much attention.

The idea that a $250 note would be a gift to criminals.

Drug dealers, arms smugglers, people traffickers, money launderers,

they all love to use large denomination notes.

On today's show, we'll look at how they use them and how minting a $250 note could really, really help one type of criminal in

particular. Spoiler alert, tax dodgers. Damn, tax dodgers. To be clear, the idea of creating a $250 note is not President Trump's, at least not officially.

He has been notably silent on the matter.

Yeah, the public face of the plan is Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina.

He's given three reasons.

First, to celebrate 250 years of American independence. Second, to lionize Mr. Trump.

Yeah, didn't he say something like the most valuable bill for the most valuable president?

Yes, he did. And the third reason he gave for the new note is to compensate for the erosion of value of the $100 bill, the largest bill that we print in America today.

And he's not wrong about that last part. Ken Rogauff is a professor of economics at Harvard

University and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He also just wrote a book

called Our Dollar Your Problem.

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