In the News

WASHINGTON – Majority Whip Tom Emmer joined Fox Business Network's Making Money with Charles Payne to discuss two of his landmark pieces of legislation coming to the House floor for a vote this week: The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Anti-Surveillance State Act and the Securities Clarity Act, which is included in the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century (FIT 21) Act. Both of these bills ensure the future of digital assets in the United States will be determined by the American people and emulate American values.

Click here or above to watch the clip.

Whip Emmer on his CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act:

“All you have to do is look at the Communist Party of China or the Chinese Communist Party with the digital yuan, Charles. They literally [could be] using that to track their citizens’ purchases, their behaviors, and they’re building social scores which people can be evaluated on for different things in this country – for insurance, etcetera. We do not need, nor do we want, something that is inconsistent with our values. In this country, we believe in a person's right to self-determine. We believe in a person's right to privacy and be able to do business with whomever they want to do business with. That is not what a central bank digital currency would do. What we have simply said in this bill is, until our government can actually show us that it can emulate cash – be open, permissionless, and private with a capital P – Charles, you should not be creating any central bank digital currency through whatever part of the government, whether that’s the Treasury or the Fed, whoever. That's what it says. And it also requires them to come to Congress for authorization if there comes a day that they think this is something they want to do.”

Whip Emmer on the FIT 21 Act:

“Whether it is Elizabeth Warren, the White House – what they are doing is trying to protect the ‘central’ in central government. They want a centralized, control-based, top-down system. And what crypto is doing is it’s literally creating decentralization and that is why that FIT 21 bill, the market structure bill, is going to be so important because they included our Securities Clarity Act. There were two things that really concerned me there, well three. One, I want to have the rules of the road. We have to stop pushing innovation off our shores. The way you bring people in so you don't experience the FTX problem that we had where they feel like they have to create their business offshores is  you create clear, simple playing rules that everybody understands so that they will keep the innovation in this country and they will develop the next generation of the web right here. The other thing, we wanted to delineate what the supervision, the oversight, the regulator was going to be in what circumstance. And then the biggest one for me, you’ve got to be able to move from a centralized system to decentralized. Because a project can start as a centralized, but then ultimately it can develop into a decentralized network and that’s what we’re really looking for.” 

Whip Emmer on modernizing America’s financial system:

“Well, it is time to move the financial system, which is the definition of freedom in this country, into the 21st century, Charles. That’s what this is all about. It’s literally taking a situation where, today, you need intermediaries for everything you do and giving you the opportunity to have peer-to-peer business in the future. Intermediaries aren’t going to go away. But you and I are going to be able to make decisions that are most important to you and I based on holding our own data and making the calls right now that other people are making.”

###