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“I’m going to put the entire US budget on the blockchain”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he wants to put the “U.S. budget on the blockchain,” a ledger of transactions commonly associated with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“I’m going to put the entire American budget on the blockchain so that any American – every American can look at every line item in the entire budget at any time, 24 hours a day,” Kennedy said Sunday at a rally in Michigan.
Public accounting of expenditures would theoretically allow for greater transparency and accountability in how the government spends taxpayer money, although recording every government transaction on the blockchain would be a herculean task.
Federal spending is also controlled by legislation, which is publicly available, and federal departments are often audited by government watchdogs such as the Government Accountability Office and their own inspectors general.
“We’re going to have 300 million eyeballs on our budget, and if somebody spends $16,000 on a toilet seat, everybody’s going to know about it,” Kennedy said, appearing to refer to a long history of scandals stemming from reports that the Pentagon paid $640 per toilet seat in the 1980s and $10,000 each for a toilet seat. replacement toilet seat covers in 2018.
Kennedy has embraced digital assets, accepting campaign donations in bitcoin and touting his plan to back the U.S. dollar with bitcoin if he is elected to the White House in November.
But Kennedy has also publicly opposed the Federal Reserve’s proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC) is currently in “exploration”, as many Republicans have done, including former President Trump.
As Republicans have rallied against the creation of a CBDC, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has said the central bank will not create one without Congress mandating it through legislation.
The Independent newspaper has described himself as the only pro-cryptocurrency candidate running for president as he wages a long-shot campaign in a contest dominated by the rematch between Trump and President Biden.
Stand With Crypto — a 501(c)(4) nonprofit started by grassroots activists and cryptocurrency exchange giant Coinbase that “advocates for clear, common-sense regulations for the cryptocurrency industry” — rates Kennedy as “strongly favorable of cryptography.
Rights group considers Trump ‘pro’ crypto and Biden ‘against’ crypto, despite Biden doing so issue an executive decree in 2022, establishing plans for “the responsible development of payments innovations and digital assets” that will help the United States maintain its leadership in global financial markets.