Digital Greenbacks: A Sequenced 'TreasuryDirect' and 'FedWallet' Plan for the Democratic Digital Dollar

Abstract

I propose means of immediately converting the Department of Treasury's existing 'TreasuryDirect' system of freely available transaction accounts into a publicly administered digital savings and payments platform. A platform of this type is an essential public utility in any commercial society such as our own. It is additionally growth-promoting inasmuch as growth-tracking GDP is a measure of transaction volume, while transaction volume is a function of more efficient and inclusive transacting. As Congress seeks means of streamlining the payments infrastructure in a time of pandemic-induced crisis, the Treasury route recommends itself as the fastest way to digitize payments for 95% of our citizens and business enterprises. I also map means of migrating the Treasury architecture to the Fed over time once the crisis is past – as the ‘Greenback’ paper dollar itself did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – and include my draft Treasury Dollar Act as an Appendix.