Providing for Consideration of H.R. Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Cbdc Anti-Surveillance State Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Prohibiting Voting By Noncitizens in District of Columbia Elections

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANGWORTHY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding time. It is great to finally get to make a speech here.

Mr. Speaker, I am a strong supporter of the legislation being considered under the rule before us today, including the Central Bank Digital Currency Anti-Surveillance State Act, which will prohibit the Federal Reserve from pursuing a path that could jeopardize the financial freedoms and privacy of the American people.

Around the world, we are seeing authoritarian regimes embrace digital currencies, and why?

It is because it is a means to more effectively and tightly control their people.

That is why the Chinese Communist Party is actively developing a digital currency that will allow them to throttle the Chinese people's access to bank accounts and subject them to Orwellian social credit systems, among other forms of oppressive state control.

Yet, we have also seen freer democratic governments, not too different from our own, pursue policies in recent years to try and control their citizens' access to basic financial services, destroying their livelihoods in the process. In fact, it was our neighbors in Canada who recently shut down access to personal bank accounts of protesters who had the audacity to exercise their right to demonstrate in opposition to their government's draconian lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

Mr. Speaker, before coming to Congress, I joined our healthcare workers and others in the State of New York to protest against Governor Cuomo's oppressive COVID vaccine mandates that led to thousands of New Yorkers, including many frontline healthcare workers, losing their jobs.

With tools like digital currency at their disposal, it creates a new pathway for the government to retaliate against those who speak up and voice a difference in opinion.

If they had that power back then, would they have used it?

Based on our experience with the Biden administration over the past 4 years and the weaponization of government agencies, I am not surprised that the American people can clearly see the danger here.

This administration with regulation after regulation and policy after policy has chipped away at the freedoms of the American people.

Under President Biden, everyday Americans are left wondering if they will be able to purchase a gas stove, drive an affordable car, do what they like with their private land, or even whether they can safely voice a conservative viewpoint without some form of reprisal from their government.

We cannot take for granted our rights as Americans, especially when we have an administration, captured and intimidated by the radical left, that has weaponized our Federal agencies against the freedoms of individuals as the Biden administration has done over the past 4 years.

The American people are sick and tired of giving up their freedoms and being spied on by our Federal Government. First, it was warrantless surveillance through FISA. Today, it is a government-controlled digital currency.

If we allow this dangerous trend to continue, what is next?

Mr. Speaker, we need to pass the underlying legislation to prevent any further pursuit of authoritarian policies like the creation of a centralized and controllable digital currency. Let's pass this rule and protect the financial privacy and the freedoms of the American people.

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