Republican Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles will introduce legislation later Thursday that would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
The Cease Orwellian Surveillance and Targeting (COST) Act of 2023, obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller, would also ban Americans from holding CBDCs issued by the U.S. or any other government. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said in 2021 that the central bank had begun exploring a digital dollar, and 20 countries already use them. Proponents cite CBDCs’ standardization and ease of use, while opponents worry about privacy concerns. (RELATED: ‘Massive Threat’: DeSantis Says Centralized Digital Currencies Open Door To ‘Social Credit System’)
“The establishment of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) would compromise the privacy and personal lives of every American,” Ogles said in a statement to the Daily Caller. “Last fall, Biden signed an executive order for the exploration of implementing a CBDC in the United States, and the Federal Reserve has been conducting pilot programs and studies to assess the viability of a CBDC.”
“The federal government’s dangerous experimentation with greater control over Americans should alarm us all – China has implemented a CBDC and that should tell folks all they need to know about it,” Ogles added. “This is an obvious gateway to a social credit system potentially giving government the ability to prohibit undesirable purchases like ammunition or fuel. We must never allow that kind of threat to our liberty. My bill would block the federal government from ever establishing a Centralized Bank Digital Currency or a ‘Communist-Backed Dollar Control,’ as I like to call it.”
Read the bill here:
OGLES_140_xml[48] by Michael Ginsberg
A White House report issued in 2022 praised CBDCs at the expense of cryptocurrencies, citing crypto’s volatile value and asserting that CBDCs could “promote financial inclusion and equity.” Saule Omarova, whom Biden nominated to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is a CBDC booster, although her nomination collapsed amid bipartisan opposition.
Authoritarian countries, most notably China, have introduced digital dollars. Observers argue the move will better allow the Chinese Communist Party to surveil its citizens, since China also banned all cryptocurrency transactions and mining activities in 2021. Russian president Vladimir Putin signed legislation Monday allowing the Bank of Russia to issue CBDCs.