{"id":453,"date":"2012-08-01T05:52:49","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T05:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=453"},"modified":"2014-02-09T05:12:05","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T05:12:05","slug":"audit-the-fed-moves-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2012\/08\/audit-the-fed-moves-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Audit the Fed Moves Forward! – Article by Ron Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Ron Paul
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
July 31, 2012<\/big><\/span><\/div>\n
Recommend this page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
\n

Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed my legislation calling for a full and effective audit of the Federal Reserve.\u00a0 Well over 300 of my Congressional colleagues supported the bill, each casting a landmark vote that marks the culmination of decades of work.\u00a0 We have taken a big step toward bringing transparency to the most destructive financial institution in the world.<\/p>\n

But in many ways our work is only beginning.\u00a0 Despite the Senate Majority Leader\u2019s past support<\/a> for similar legislation, no vote has been scheduled on my bill this year in the Senate.\u00a0 And only 29 Senators<\/a> have cosponsored Senator Rand Paul\u2019s version of my bill in the other body.\u00a0 If your Senator is not listed at the link above, please contact them and ask for their support.\u00a0 We need to push Senate leadership to hold a vote this year.<\/p>\n

Understand that last week\u2019s historic vote never would have taken place without the efforts of millions of Americans like you, ordinary citizens concerned about liberty and the integrity of our currency.\u00a0 Political elites respond to political pressure, pure and simple.\u00a0 They follow rather than lead.\u00a0 If all 100 Senators feel enough grassroots pressure, they will respond and force Senate leadership to hold what will be a very popular vote.<\/p>\n

In fact, \u201cAudit the Fed\u201d is so popular that 75% of all Americans support it according to this Rasmussen poll<\/a>.\u00a0 We are making progress.<\/p>\n

Of course Fed apologists– including Mr. Bernanke– frequently insist that the Fed already is audited.\u00a0 But this is true only in the sense that it produces annual financial statements.\u00a0 It provides the public with its balance sheet as a fait accompli: we see only the net results of its financial transactions from the previous fiscal year in broad categories, and only after the fact.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also told that the Dodd-Frank bill passed in 2010 mandates an audit.\u00a0 But it provides for only a limited audit of certain Fed credit facilities surrounding the crisis period of 2008.\u00a0 It is backward looking, which frankly is of limited benefit.<\/p>\n

The Fed also claims it wants to be \u201cindependent\u201d from Congress so that politics don\u2019t interfere with monetary policy.\u00a0 This is absurd for two reasons.<\/p>\n

First, the Fed already is inherently and unavoidably political.\u00a0 It made a political decision when it chose not to rescue Lehman Brothers in 2008, just as it made a political decision to provide liquidity for AIG in the same time period. These are just two obvious examples.\u00a0 Also Fed member banks and the Treasury Department are full of former– and future– Goldman Sachs officials.\u00a0 Are we really to believe that the interests of Goldman Sachs have absolutely no effect on Fed decisions? Clearly it\u2019s na\u00efve to think the Fed somehow is above political or financial influence.<\/p>\n

Second, it\u2019s important to remember that Congress created the Fed by statute.\u00a0 Congress therefore has the full, inherent authority to regulate the Fed in any way– up to and including abolishing it altogether.<\/p>\n

My bill provides for an ongoing, thorough audit of what the Fed really does in secret, which is make decisions about the money supply, interest rates, and bailouts of favored banks, financial firms, and companies.\u00a0 In other words, I want the Government Accountability Office to examine the Fed\u2019s actual monetary policy operations and make them public.<\/p>\n

It is precisely this information that must be made public because it so profoundly affects everyone who holds, saves, or uses US dollars.<\/p>\n

Representative Ron Paul (R \u2013 TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage<\/a> and his official campaign website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Paul July 31, 2012 Recommend this page. ****************************** Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed my legislation calling for a full and effective audit of the Federal Reserve.\u00a0 Well over 300 of my Congressional colleagues supported the bill, each casting a landmark vote that marks the culmination of decades of work.\u00a0 We have taken a big step toward bringing transparency to the most destructive financial institution in the world. But in many ways our work is only beginning.\u00a0…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[840,837,340,712,444,838,693,18,339,234,839,1123,1124,445,842,236,1038,686,338,17,1054,702,65,661,690,206],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-politics","tag-audit","tag-audit-the-fed","tag-ben-bernanke","tag-capitalism","tag-congress","tag-currency","tag-dollar","tag-economy","tag-fed","tag-federal-reserve","tag-fiat-money","tag-goldman-sachs","tag-government-accountability-office","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-hr-459","tag-inflation","tag-lehman-brothers","tag-money","tag-murray-rothbard","tag-prices","tag-quantitative-easing","tag-rand-paul","tag-ron-paul","tag-senate","tag-sound-money","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2106,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/2106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}