CBDCs: Government’s tool to control what you buy and own
by Rep. Michael Cloud and Rep. Keith Self · The Washington TimesOPINION:
A Central Bank Digital Currency would be the ultimate tool of surveillance and control and is antithetical to the values of liberty and financial freedom.
With a CBDC, the government could track every purchase you make: the gun store you visit, the church or political cause you donate to, the books you buy, the medication you need and the out-of-state travel you undertake.
No more private transactions. No more anonymous charity. No more financial independence from Washington’s gaze.
Cash and decentralized cryptocurrency preserve the American people’s financial choice; a CBDC destroys it.
That is why Congress must permanently ban a CBDC. Don’t believe the advocates selling this as a harmless technological upgrade. CBDC is, in reality, a powerful tool for government surveillance and control over every American’s financial life.
A CBDC is not “digital cash.” Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies or even today’s bank deposits, a CBDC would be a direct liability of the central bank. Every transaction could be instantly visible to the government and subject to real-time rules set by unelected bureaucrats.
This is not innovation; it is the infrastructure for financial authoritarianism.
Even worse is the programmability feature. Central bankers and academics openly discuss “programmable money” that could expire, be restricted to certain merchants or be blocked from purchasing disfavored goods.
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For example, China’s digital yuan is already being used for social control experiments. America should not import that same kind of Orwellian model.
Proponents claim a CBDC is needed to compete with China or combat crime. These arguments collapse under scrutiny.
Criminals already exploit every new technology, and the U.S. dollar’s dominance stems from the rule of law, deep markets and limited government interference — not from giving the deep state more surveillance tools. Replacing cash with traceable CBDC would mainly burden law-abiding citizens while sophisticated actors shift to privacy coins, stablecoins or offshore systems.
The financial stability risks are equally severe. A retail CBDC would allow Americans to pull deposits directly from banks into Fed accounts with a click of a button.
In times of stress, this creates perfect conditions for digital bank runs far faster than anything we have seen. Smaller community banks would be crippled. The Federal Reserve would become the dominant allocator of credit, concentrating enormous power in Washington.
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We already possess efficient, diversified digital payment systems: Venmo, Zelle, credit cards and more. What a CBDC uniquely offers is government control at the base layer of money itself.
Federal agencies are already buying commercial data on Americans. A CBDC would hand them perfect, real-time transaction data on a silver platter. Combine that with artificial intelligence analysis, and the emerging surveillance apparatus becomes total.
The solution is simple. Congress should pass legislation to ban CBDCs permanently and encourage competition in payments without creating a government monopoly on digital dollars. House Republicans unanimously passed anti-CBDC legislation last summer. The Senate must take up such measures immediately.
The Founders designed a constitutional republic with checks on centralized power precisely to prevent tyranny. A CBDC represents one of the greatest concentrations of economic power ever contemplated in American history. It must be rejected outright before the quiet march toward digital control becomes irreversible.
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• Rep. Michael Cloud, who represents Texas’ 27th Congressional District, and Rep. Keith Self, who represents Texas’ 3rd Congressional District, are both members of the House Freedom Caucus.