Heritage Action supports Senate passage of the Rescissions Act of 2025 (H.R. 4; S. 2067) and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard.
Heritage Action supports Senate passage of the Rescissions Act of 2025 (H.R. 4; S. 2067) and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard.
The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act (H.R. 1919), introduced by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, prohibits a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) from being issued by the government or Federal Reserve, including an “intermediated” CBDC — using banks or other institutions as an intermediary. At the same time, the bill permits private stablecoins that offer an innovative alternative to money and legacy payment systems. This legislation would build on President Trump’s Executive Order: Strengthening American Leadership In Digital Financial Technology, by adding a prohibition on the development of a CBDC into statutory law.
When individuals opt for electronic transactions instead of paper currency today, dollars are typically transferred through digital payment methods like a chipped credit card, smartphone, direct deposit, etc. These dollars, even while transferred electronically, are inherently fungible among the different payment methods. Each digital payment service method functions and holds value the same as another. Stablecoins are privately run digital assets denominated in a national currency or other reference asset. They offer parallels to money and payment systems, just as PayPal or Venmo offer different ways to spend and send dollars. Stablecoins are private and do not replace coins and physical currency.
CBDCs — whether managed through banks (indirect/intermediated) or through the Federal Reserve (direct/disintermediated) — are distinctly different from a stablecoin or other privately-run digital assets. They are programmable, traceable, trackable, and taxable.
The federal government does not and should not operate other services and providers that are central to everyday life, like grocery stores, telephone companies, or the internet. While that may be partly because it is bad at running things, it is also because government control and centralization are an inherent threat to civil liberties. For instance, it would be too easy for a government-run grocery store to coerce behavior by not allowing an individual to buy food or using political motivations to ban certain producers from shelves. Similarly, the government has no business surveilling and controlling every financial transaction Americans make through a CBDC, as a CBDC, by design, makes the government a party to every financial transaction and gives the government the power to block a payment from clearing.
The move to advance a CBDC would amount to following in the footsteps of the Chinese Communist Party’s programmable digital yuan. CBDC proponents mimic China’s claim that a CBDC is an honest effort to adopt new and innovative technologies that will make transactions cheaper and faster. This could not be farther from the truth. There has been no lack of innovation in the private market, and nothing in our history that supports a total government takeover. Over the past 50 years, private industry has created new ways to pay, such as credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Venmo, etc. The need for a variety of technologies and competition has been highlighted in recent years as an increasing number of Americans — particularly conservatives — have been canceled from some of these services even as they engage in lawful behavior. Alternatives among financial products are a bulwark for financial freedom, and a government-controlled CBDC would be a monopoly that eliminates all alternatives.
Private innovation continues to accelerate, and we now even have the “digital dollar” in the form of private stablecoins that offer every transaction benefit of a CBDC but are separate from the government and its control. Stablecoins already provide fast and cheap transactions, settling in seconds at near-zero cost.
Instead of promoting surveillance tokens, CBDCs should be banned in every form. When Americans across the country have been punished for thinking, speaking, and voting the ‘wrong’ way, the last thing we need is the government surveilling personal finances via every purchase we make. Thorough anti-CBDC legislation is necessary to safeguard Americans' financial privacy in the face of potential surveillance, control, and political intimidation. The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act protects individual liberty and prevents threats of government coercion through the financial sector.
Heritage Action supports Senate passage of the Rescissions Act of 2025 (H.R. 4; S. 2067) and will include it as a key vote on our legislative scorecard.