Exclusive — Rep. Drew Ferguson: Democrat Plan for IRS Surveillance ‘Feels and Sounds a Lot like the Chinese Social Score’

Democrat plans to surveil Americans’ bank accounts using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are part of a broader framework to install government controls resembling China’s “social credit score” system, Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA) observed on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with special guest host Jerome Hudson.

Treasury Secretary Jessica Yellen recently said bank transactions valued at $600 or more should be automatically reported to the IRS for surveillance to combat “tax fraud and cheating.” In September, the Biden administration called for Congress to enact legislation forcing banks to report such transactions to the IRS

“What they’re trying to do is to control every part of your life,” Ferguson said. “They are looking at your social media posts. They are looking at your finances. They’re going to tie all of this stuff together, and it ultimately feels and sounds a lot like the Chinese social score with the government being in control of every part of your life. If you’re for the party that’s in control, your life is going to be fine. If you agree with big government socialists in your statements — and your ideas align with them — and they’ve got control of your bank account, then you’re going to be the one that gets access to credit. If you believe in freedom, and you believe that the Democrats are wrong about what they’re doing, then you’re going to be denied access to credit.”

He remarked, “America no longer has confidence in the Biden administration. More importantly, [Americans] don’t trust the Biden administration. We’ve seen the moving of goal posts on the variety of issues, and it’s another example of why we cannot let something like an IRS bank surveillance provision pass in a reconciliation bill.”

Ferguson referenced the Fourth Amendment’s protection of Americans against unlawful search and seizure of their property.

“Number one, I think at its core it’s unconstitutional,” he continued. “The money in that bank account is yours. It does not belong to the federal government. The bank account is yours. It does not belong to the federal government, and the federal government cannot search your property without cause. … The same thing applies to your car. It applies to your home. The Democrats want to know what you’re doing.”

On October 15, Ferguson introduced the Prohibiting IRS Financial Surveillance Act to counter the Biden administration’s and Democrats’ push to amplify the IRS’s surveillance powers.

He stated, “I think we’re over 170 cosponsors — Republican cosponsors in the House, I believe that we’ve got 50 senators on the companion bill that the Senator [Tim] Scott dropped on that side of the building, and I have privately had some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say, ‘Yeah, if this is in the bill, we would be interested in signing on to yours.’ They even know that it’s not right.”