House Bill Would Ban the Federal Reserve from Exploring “Digital Dollar” Creation
A digital dollar could “support faster and cheaper payments,” according to the Federal Reserve. It could also give the government unprecedented control over Americans’ financial decisions.
Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to close a “loophole” that the Federal Reserve Bank could exploit to create the exploratory Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot program. H.R. 3712 defines CBDC as “a form of digital money or monetary value, denominated in the national unit of account, that is a direct liability of the Federal Reserve.”
“Congress cannot give an inch when it comes to CBDCs,” said Mooney. “CBDCs would threaten the liberties of law-abiding Americans and are being used by authoritarian countries right now to crack down on dissent.”
H.R. 3712 would amend the Federal Reserve Act to deny the Federal Reserve the power to “establish, carry out, or approve a program intended to test the practicability of issuing a central bank digital currency, including by partnering or coordinating with a private sector entity to carry out such a program.”
The Federal Reserve could only establish such a program if “authorized by an Act of Congress enacted after the date of the enactment” of H.R. 3712.
The Federal Reserve issued a paper in January of 2022 on “the pros and cons of a potential U.S.” CBDC, Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation, which acknowledged the Federal Reserve lacks the authority to create a direct-to-consumer CBDC.
“The Federal Reserve Act does not authorize direct Federal Reserve accounts for individuals, and such accounts would represent a significant expansion of the Federal Reserve’s role in the financial system and the economy.”
The paper, however, argues the Federal Reserve has the authority to create an “intermediate” CBDC, under which “the private sector would offer accounts or digital wallets to facilitate the management of CBDC holdings and payments.” Under the intermediate model, the CBDC would still be the Federal Reserve’s liability.
Potential benefits of CBDC, according to the Federal Reserve, include “provid[ing] households and businesses a convenient, electronic form of central bank money, with the safety and liquidity that would entail” and “support[ing] faster and cheaper payments”
Critics of CBDC, such as the Cato Institute, have argued CBDC is bad for privacy, security, and liberty.
With centralized financial information, a breach would affect all citizens, whereas the current decentralized storage of financial information in individual banks means “a breach at a private financial institute would only affect a fraction of citizens.”
A centralized financial network, the Cato Institute argues, would be more vulnerable to a cyberattack compared to the current decentralized financial network because, under a CBDC system, there exists only one target: the Federal Reserve.
CBDC, according to the Cato Institute, would allow the government to more easily freeze or seize assets and to place restrictions on spending:
The programming capabilities of a CBDC could mean that people would be prohibited from buying certain goods or limited in how much they might purchase. For example, policymakers could try to curb drinking by limiting nightly alcohol purchases or prohibiting purchases for people with alcohol related offenses. (emphasis original)
A representative of the Federal Reserve declined to comment on H.R. 3712.
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Comments
Even as thoroughly as our freedoms have been eaten away, the introduction of CBDC would be game, set, match. As the Canadian truckers and their supporters.
Ask
THIS is why I am a 2A supporter.
I will not fall alone.
First cogent answer i’ve heard
NO
“Of course your money is only good within 20 miles of your home — why would you need to leave your ’15-minute-city’?
Of course your money has an expiration date. Spend your money — savers are bad for the economy.”
Of course ‘haters’ are not allowed to purchase food. Hate is bad. The government will decide what constitutes ‘hate’, based on which grievance group they are pandering to today.
On the US Bills it has the words – Legal Tender for All Debts Public and Private. Does that have any legal meaning? If so, how can companies refuse to take cash?
What if the government stops printing cash?
Federal government simply declares all Fed Reserve fiat paper currency and coin to no longer be “Legal Tender for All Debts Public & Private” and withdraws all of it from circulation. Then require that all financial transactions after a future date be solely accomplished by electronic means. And that’s all folks! Companies no longer need take cash payments. Only the approved “electronic cash equivalent”.
That’s the doomsday scenario. I expect what we’d see then is a lot of the more “Liberty-minded” states (TX, FL, et al) would start printing their own currencies. This might start the dominoes falling towards the breakup of the republic.
These ‘elites’ who keep pushing this type of shit need to wake up. People aren’t going to keep taking this crap from them. They need to study history and consider what happens to tyrants. Tar & feathers. Drawing and quartering. Guillotines. Lots of historical options. Lots of new tech ideas that could be applied.
A few State Govt have begun to accumulate their gold and silver reserves held in physical form by the State. Other States have also passed legislation affirming that gold and silver coins are legal tender within their State.
That’s the doomsday scenario.
And if you haven’t noticed, democrats are hardly worried about “doomsday scenarios” when it comes to taking and keeping power. They’d do it in a minute if they could and worry about the fallout later.
Companies?
Governments refuse to take cash.
I dunno about your state, but in mine, try to pay a traffic fine with cash.
Oh, you won’t take my legal currency to pay off my traffic fine? Well then, since you refused to accept the payment then I am no longer legally obligated to pay the amount you demand as a traffic fine.
Everything should be digital. Need to hook up everybody to machines as in the movie Matrix and put AI’s in charge. They can feed us and take care of us.
Good luck with that. The left knows that the only way to control your funds and extinguish the debt.
Frankly, almost nobody uses cash anymore. Everything is already done with credit and debit cards. If I get stuck in a grocery checkout behind somebody counting out bills and change, I get irritated, and I doubt I’m unique. I carry cash, but rarely use it for anything but fast food or flea markets.
Please read the various histories of underground (cash) economies: here in the USA, as well as worldwide
I pay cash for as much as I can.
We all should. Put a cog in the wheel to slow down/stop the tyranny.
That’s fine, but you’re one of a very tiny minority.
I use cards for almost everything. Almost.
Txvet2 You are right about most people using cards instead of cash. The difference is who controls the debit card and sees the transactions. Currently your bank does and is only required to report certain transactions to the government. Suppose the ATF was able to review all firearms and ammo transactions because you had to use government digital currency for it. Or that any government agency that wanted to could see what political candidates or charities you donated to. So I don’t think anyone objects to using virtual currency in the form of debit card, apple wallet, google wallet. It is all about who has the data. After the recent Twitter files revelations it is possible that Apple, Google, Samsung, and the major banks are giving all this to the government without a warrant anyway, in which case the whole discussion is moot.
But the ability for the government to track how you spend your money is only part of the problem. You’re right, the existing credit/debit card systems create the ability for the government (and big tech/fin) to track your spending patterns.
The even more insidious aspect of CBDC is that it would give the government (or their Fascist cronies in big tech) the ability to cut off your access to your money if they decide they don’t like you for some reason. Imagine if you posted something to social media that got the wokesters and their cancel mob all ginned up, and some woke c*nt in some government office somewhere decided you were a ‘hater’ and cut off your bank account.
So you think that they can’t do that now?
Clearly there have been movements in that direction. The effort Obama made to pressure the banks to stop serving gun dealers is a good example. Or more recently the moves made by the administration’s Fascist buddies in the card industry to create new transaction codes for gun purchases. And we’ve seen various anecdotal examples of individuals being ‘de platformed’ by their payment processors for wrong-think. So yes, I get your point. But if we moved to CBDC it would be possible to do at mass scale at the ‘push of a button’ which is not remotely possible now.
It’s much harder with the banks as an intermediary and with cash still an option. With a digital currency that’s a direct link to your financial actions. With the adoption of a CBDC the govt wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to interfere directly in your financial activities. It would likely be a subtle nudge at first then escalate over time into an Orwellian nightmare. Politicians and bureaucrats won’t be able to stop themselves from doing it, power is an addictive drug to them. The only answer is to keep the drug of CBDC out of their hands.
The stores all have a profile and transaction history of you. What do you want to bet the government buys or otherwise has access to every one of those profiles?
I refer to these insidious attacks on us by this “administration” as the modern version of the Intolerable Acts. I don’t want to see it but our Lexington and Concord moments are fast approaching. Keep your powder dry and hatchet scoured.
Try to picture the moment when the government says it will seize all retirement accounts and put everyone on the “fair” system of Socialist Security.
“Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to close a “loophole” that the Federal Reserve Bank could exploit to create the exploratory Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot program.”
Where was Representative Alex Mooney when the House of Representatives approved the three earlier bills (1, 2, 3) encouraging the executive branch and the Federal Reserve to fuck around with Central Bank Digital Currencies in the first place?