With advanced technology, we are seeing the traditional paper dollar disappear before our eyes. A recent Forbes poll reported that 70% of individuals most often use a debit or credit card for purchases while only 22% pay with cash. Online banking, digital wallets, and new currencies, such as cryptocurrency, have bolstered this shift in payment methods. With cash out of our hands, bad actors in the federal government are finding more ways to get their hands on it.
Cryptocurrency was first introduced in 2009 with the creation of Bitcoin. Since then, nearly 23,000 cryptocurrencies have been created, boosting the popularity of this type of payment method. A Pew survey found that 33 million Americans use crypto and Blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely to own it than whites. Crypto users feel as though their assets are protected from the volatile nature of politicians and they can retain their privacy when operating within the crypto sphere. However, the federal government tends to invade people’s privacy.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order (EO) in March 2022 to regulate cryptocurrencies. The measure called on 23 federal agencies to put forward policies to “protect consumers” from “money laundering, cybercrime and ransomware, narcotics and human trafficking, and terrorism and proliferation financing.” However, the devil is in the details. Woke buzzwords like “climate change” and “inclusion and equity” are used throughout the EO to ensure that extreme agendas can be funded without restriction. Just as we have seen with the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts to push liberal agendas on investors, the same can happen in the digital currency space by prohibiting the flow of money to businesses or individuals who disagree with certain principles.
Essentially, Biden’s EO encourages agencies to create a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). A CBDC would entirely be under the control of the Federal Reserve. The federal government would become the all-seeing eye monitoring every purchase and exchange of money in real time.
Congress voted on two bills this week to counteract Biden’s EO. The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act (HR 5403) prohibits the Federal Reserve from creating a CBDC or using a CBDC to implement monetary policies. Additionally, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 4763) attempts to protect consumers in a different way by reining in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by deregulating digital assets. Both bills passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support.
It seems that one important aspect of dealing with currency is overlooked in congressional legislation. Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution explicitly states, “No State shall… make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” A gold standard would hold the federal government to strict standards instead of printing money at will. States like Texas are leading the way in backing gold and silver as legal tender. Last year, a Texas House committee passed legislation that would authorize the Texas Bullion Depository to issue gold and silver as digital currency. This would tie the hands of the Federal Reserve from surveilling Texans or dictating how they can exchange money.
Kevin Freeman outlines in his book, Pirate Money: Discovering the Founders’ Hidden Plan for Economic Justice and Defeating the Great Reset, a similar plan to Texas and a way to bring the past and present together. He writes:
The ideal money today would be based in gold and silver, held and protected by a sovereign state, and available electronically. … But if that gold were in a Texas vault, for example, and the state kept track down to minute fractions of an ounce of your holdings, and paid whomever you directed, it would be ideal money.
Over 20 states have either introduced or passed legislation to keep the gold and silver standard in order to retain individual privacy and consumer choice. These states are keeping the federal government out of their business. If you would like to get involved in these efforts, connect with an Eagle Forum state chapter near you.