Why America’s Founding Fathers feared central control ‘more than anything else’ and how this is the focal point of this year’s election – Bernie Moreno

(Kitco New, Fri. June 7th, 2024) – Bernie Moreno, the Trump-endorsed Republican Senate nominee from Ohio, says this year’s election is a choice between the “freedom” Bitcoin offers and the threat of tyranny posed by the introduction of a central bank digital currency in the U.S.

Crypto will play a critical role in this year’s elections, with this year’s choice coming down to those who support Bitcoin versus a central bank digital currency. It’s a vote for freedom over tyranny, Moreno told Michelle Makori, Lead Anchor and Editor-in-Chief at Kitco News, on the sidelines of Consensus 2024.

Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, a CBDC is a programmable digital sovereign currency designed and issued by a central government. It transacts on a digital ledger that the government controls.

“The reality is that’s what this election ultimately is about. If you have the government remove cash from the system, we can only use fiat currency through some sort of centralized digital bank currency, it is checkmate, the death star. It’s whatever analogy you want to use because now the government gets to decide what you do,” Moreno said.

In 2022, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14067, which urgently called for the research and development of a central bank digital currency. According to the executive order, “My Administration places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC.”

At the start of this year, former U.S. President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed to “never allow” the Federal Reserve to create a digital dollar if he is re-elected.

“Such a currency would give a federal government, our federal government, the absolute control over your money […] they could take your money, and you wouldn’t even know it was gone,” Trump said during a campaign speech in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “This would be a dangerous threat to freedom, and I will stop it from coming to America.”

Moreno said Democrats will end up “crushing” the crypto industry if elected despite the current pivot in messaging. For more details, watch the video above.

Central bank digital currencies continue to see accelerated adoption this year, with 134 countries exploring these options. According to the Atlantic Council, this represents 98% of global GDP.

Moreno warned of the dangers if a CBDC were introduced in the U.S. “They can’t force you to buy an electric car, but they can ban you from buying gas. They can’t take your guns away because of the Second Amendment. They can prevent you from buying bullets. Maybe they think that quarter-pounders or cheese are not healthy. So they don’t want you to buy meat,” he said. “It sounds dystopian, but that’s their view. Remember, underlying this is a philosophy among people like Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Elizabeth Warren. They think that they know best what’s good for our lives.”

Moreno is running against Ohio’s Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown. He pointed out that America’s Founding Fathers feared and fought against centralized control.

“We fought a revolution almost 250 years ago that went against that exact level of thinking that had a decentralized government. The original Bitcoiners were our founders. They understood the power of central control and feared it more than anything else,” he stated. “And that’s what November 5th is all about.”

What are CBDCs?

• Central bank digital currencies are programmable, digital currencies that operate as fiat currency. They are controlled and issued by central banks. 
• Proponents’ claims: CBDCs can prevent money laundering, deter criminal activities, improve the speed and security of transactions, help fine-tune monetary policy, and allow for financial inclusion. 
• Critics claim: CBDCs are the ultimate tool of control, censorship, and surveillance that can be used to monitor every single payment made and received obliterating financial privacy and anonymity.

In May, the U.S. House passed the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act, which aims to block the Federal Reserve from directly offering a CBDC to individuals and using it to implement monetary policy. The bill now heads to the Democrat-controlled Senate.

The legislation aims “to amend the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit the Federal Reserve banks from offering certain products or services directly to an individual, to prohibit the use of central bank digital currency for monetary policy, and for other purposes.”

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn), who introduced the bill, said the Federal Reserve is still “confused” about whether it can develop and implement a central bank digital currency (CBDC), stating at Consensus 2024 that the passage of his bill in the House shows “how politically potent this issue is.”

Emmer also compared CBDC to “a CCP — Chinese Communist Party — style surveillance tool.” In China, the Communist Party has employed a CBDC to monitor and control citizens’ spending habits.

For Moreno’s take on whether the U.S. can maintain its global leadership without a CBDC, watch the video above.

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Moreno moved to the United States with his family at age five and became an American citizen at 18. He purchased his first car dealership in 2005, growing that single dealership into one of the largest dealership groups in America. Moreno also recognized the potential of blockchain technology early on, co-founding ChampTitles in 2018, a company revolutionizing the way states issue car titles by eliminating the need for paper.

Moreno is running on a platform to shrink government, protect America’s freedoms, stop the Chinese Communist Party from taking America’s data and land, and put America First.

One of his 16 priorities is to secure America’s borders, stop amnesty, and destroy the Mexican Drug Cartels.

Posted by:

Jack Dempsey, President

401 Gold Consultants LLC

jdemp2003@gmail.com