(RightWing.org) – It wasn’t long ago when people wanted to buy something from a store, they would walk in, pick up the product they wanted, and plunk down some bills and/or coins to complete the purchase. More recently, digital transfers such as PayPal have become fairly commonplace, and digital currencies such as bitcoin have entered play. Now, President Joe Biden’s administration is looking into a controversial system that could provide America with a new way to move money around.
Digital Dollars
Just days after the FTX cryptocurrency implosion in November, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York teamed up with several of the largest banks in the country in a 12-week “proof of concept” test of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) system. While there don’t appear to be any published results from their experiment, it is worth noting the San Francisco division has been advertising for technology experts for research and development positions to “better understand this emerging field.”
In January 2022, the Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed) took the opening moves toward a potential US CBDC by publishing a paper that examines both sides of the idea. The premise would be for the federal government to create an electronic system where people could exchange digital currency with one another and with businesses that would carry only the same risks as physical money. For example, it would not be like having an account at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which could suddenly become inaccessible.
If it sounds a bit confusing, that’s okay because it appears some Republican lawmakers were also looking for answers. In a September 7, 2022, letter to the Vice Chair of the Fed Board of Governors, Lael Brainard, they asked about the motivation for such a move, specifically if it was an attempt to push back on the use of “private sector, innovative payment methods.” Many are hailing a March 1, 2023 speech by Nellie Liang — Treasury Department Under Secretary for Domestic Finance — announcing a CBDC working group to study the matter as the first firm steps toward implementing the system.
Some prominent Republicans are firmly against the idea, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who announced in a March 20 press release he’s proposing legislation that would proactively forbid a federal CBDC from being considered money in his state. He accused the Biden administration of using the concept as another means to “promote government-sanctioned surveillance” because a centralized digital currency would allow the Washington DC bureaucracy’s nose into every consumer transaction. He went on to say this idea is another attempt to insert the Liberal Agenda into the country’s financial system, just as they are pushing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings for inclusion into decisions for investing money for government-held retirement accounts.
In South Dakota, the legislature sent House Bill 1193 to Republican Governor Kristi Noem for her signature, and on March 9, in a letter to the state’s Speaker of the House, she listed her reasons for vetoing it. She explained that, in her opinion, aspects of the proposal put citizens and businesses in the state at a disadvantage and said it could “open the door to a potential future overreach by the federal government.”
Copyright 2023, RightWing.org
