Political Quotes

“I urge Members to oppose the Mooney amendment, which explicitly bans CBDC pilot programs. Like the last amendment we just considered, this amendment bans something that H.R. 5403 already bans. Oddly, this amendment would exacerbate the confusing drafting in H.R. 5403, by prohibiting something in two places but in slightly different ways. In fact, all three of these amendments that we are considering for this bill overlap with existing provisions in the underlying bill, which leads me to believe that Republicans simply don't understand what their own bill does. Let me again try to explain their own bill. This amendment and the bill both prohibit the Fed from conducting a study on how to design a central bank digital currency using a pilot program. In case the public is wondering, the New York Fed is currently conducting a pilot through its New York Innovation Center to test the benefits and drawbacks of a wholesale CBDC in collaboration with U.S. banks and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. This pilot does not mean that at the end the Fed will issue a CBDC or that Americans will have one. In fact, the Fed has made it abundantly clear that it wants Congress to authorize it to do so, but how is Congress going to be able to make this decision if we don't have any research as to how a CBDC could be designed that reflects our values? Again, importantly, to counter misinformation from the other side of the aisle, wholesale CBDCs are not used by individual consumers.…”