DeSantis and Kennedy Jr Slam Fed’s Plans for Digital Dollar

• DeSantis and Kennedy Jr. criticized the Fed’s digital dollar plan.
• The Fed only plans to issue digital dollars with the approval of Congress.
• Kennedy Jr. combines the concepts of FedNow and CBDC.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused the Federal Reserve (Fed) of seeking to use the proposed digital dollar to “control” America’s finances.

According to Ron, using the new digital US dollar allows the Government to block transactions such as buying riffles or overfilling gas.

During a conference held on Saturday in Pennsylvania, Ron DeSantis announced his plans to put forward a bill that would eliminate the ESG agenda. “ESG” refers to the policies implemented by the private sector to promote environmental, social and governance principles.

This announcement comes just days after Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine leader, took to Twitter to express his concern. That issuing Fed digital dollars can allow the Government to monitor public financial reports. In other words, Kennedy Jr. believes government-controlled digital currencies can improve oversight of citizens’ economic activities.

Kennedy’s tweet stated that the Government would impose transaction limits on people. This can lead to regulatory authorities limiting where people can send their assets. This, in turn, would allow those responsible to freeze assets or limit spending to approved vendors only, with non-compliance resulting in arbitrary dictates.

Federal Reserve officials are actively considering creating digital dollars to compete with countries such as China that have implemented their digital currencies. Nonetheless, they clarified that their organization will only issue digital dollars with explicit authorization from Congress.

Kennedy appears to be combining two initiatives – the FedNow service and the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) concept. While the FedNow service is a bank-to-bank payment system, a CBDC will be a digital version of a country’s currency issued by a central bank.

On March 8, during a congressional hearing, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated that any decision to release a digital currency to the public would require prior approval from lawmakers.

Powell emphasized that the central bank has yet to determine whether the country’s financial system will need or want digital currency, making it an important consideration.

Last year, the Federal Reserve published a whitepaper examining the potential advantages and disadvantages of introducing digital currencies. However, there is no indication in the document that the Fed is considering limiting transactions.

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