TOPLINE POINTS

• The digitization of money through a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) creates substantial threats to financial privacy, increases government power, and could be weaponized against the American people.
• Further innovation of the payment system may increase speed and decrease costs, but those benefits can be realized without a CBDC.
• The Federal Reserve neither has the authority nor can be trusted to create a retail CBDC, displacing today’s private banks. Congress must not authorize the creation of a CBDC.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

On March 9, 2022 President Biden issued Executive Order (EO) 14067 (Federal Register, 2022)— Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets — which directed the United States Department of Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and other relevant agencies to begin exploring the adoption of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) (The White House, 2022). The executive order cites a litany of threats that would prompt the exploration of adopting a CBDC, including national security, economic risks, the stability and integrity of the financial system, illicit crime, and climate change. EO 14067 “places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC…and the actions required to launch a United States CBDC if doing so is deemed to be in the national interest.”

This report outlines the role of money as a federal government tool and means of exchange. Analyzing the evolution of money in the modern world and examining how currency operates domestically and globally, this report examines how a shift to a CBDC would substantially alter the role and nature of money. In particular, the report assesses the extraordinary economic control, discrimination, and threats to data privacy that might result from the development of a CBDC. Additionally, given the extraordinary failures of the Federal Reserve recently, one must question whether they have the competency to replace the private sector banking system that has served our nation throughout its history. The fact is: The Federal Reserve cannot issue a CBDC without Congressional authority. Congress must make this clear by enacting legislation that restricts the creation and use of a CBDC.