Ron Paul’s congressional office sent out the following press release today:
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) is pleased to announce that all 178 Republican members of the House have now signed on as cosponsors of his Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207.
This legislation calls for a full and complete audit of the Federal Reserve by the Government Accountability Office, reported to Congress by the end of 2010.
“Now more than ever, we need to know what the Fed has been doing in secret. I am pleased that all of my Republican colleagues in the House, as well as many Democrats, understand the need for this kind of transparency,” stated Congressman Paul.
HR 1207 has a total of 271 cosponsors and has been referred to the House Financial Services Committee.
Alan Grayson: It’s surprising to me that it has gotten essentially no mainstream media coverage at all because we’re talking about so much money.
William Greider: The Federal Reserve is the black hole in American democracy.
Ron Paul: All we have to say is, what do they have to hide?
Dennis Kucinich: The Federal Reserve had a responsibility to provide oversight for the conduct of banks. They didn’t do that.
Narrator: It’s known as the most powerful and secretive institutions in Washington and now, President Obama wants to hand the Federal Reserve even more power.
Barack Obama: I am proposing that the Federal Reserve be granted new authority and accountability for regulating bank holding companies and other large firms that pose a risk to the entire economy in the event of failure.
Narrator: The President’s plan to make the Fed the systemic risk regulator has raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill.
Darrell Issa: The President’s financial reform proposal has included broad and sweeping increases in Chairman Bernanke or his successor’s powers and if that power is used, what would be the oversight? Continue reading “The Federal Reserve Under Fire”
Channel: Fox Business Show: Happy Hour Date: July 15, 2009
Robert Gray: I was just going through the board here and we had a comment from one of our viewers here who wanted to know if you would support Congressman’s Ron Paul’s bid to have the Fed under closer scrutiny, to put it mildly.
Michelle Bachmann: I am already a co-sponsor and I’ve been a speaker on that already in various places across the country. I firmly believe in auditing the Fed. I sit on the Financial Services Committee, I am a former Federal Tax Litigation Attorney myself, and I asked Chairman Bernanke about that when he came before our committee. I asked him why the Fed did not disclose the overnight loans that they made. They still do not make that disclosure, nor have we had a complete audit of the Fed. I am absolutely in total agreement with my colleague and that’s why I have joined 242 colleagues in asking for that audit of the Fed. It’s time.
Rebecca Diamond: Fed official Donald Kohn is saying that this is a bad move because it places the Fed squarely in the political crosshairs, it puts them under political pressure, and it could create inflation down the road, as if that was a concern right now with the Fed. But my point is that we have the Federal Reserve or any central bank closely aligned with the government, like we see in emerging markets or banana republics, it could cause more gutting of the printing presses which is happening now. Do you see that concern?
Michelle Bachmann: I think there is a very real concern and I think there is no excuse not to audit, not to have transparency and not to have accountability. We need to have all of this for the Fed, especially when we see the Obama administration and the treasury secretary in particular, putting forth a plan to have a super regulator over the financial services industry and potentially to put that individual housed in the Fed.
Rebecca Diamond: Right.
Michelle Bachmann: We need to pull back the curtain a little bit and take a look at what’s happening with the Fed.
Rebecca Diamond: You know, my colleague Robert Gray has been tracking you, and we’re getting an avalanche of emails since you’ve come on. Thank you so much, Congressman. But quickly… what I’m hearing on Wall Street is that the real issue with pulling back on the curtains on the Wizard of Oz is that the Federal Reserve does not want to disclose that it did make really questionable bailout money available to Wall Street firms and making their trades 100% whole, 100 cents on the dollar. For example, the AIG bailout, with Deutsch Bank, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs getting all of their money in those trades refunded back… tax payer money going towards them. They don’t want those decisions made public. So, are you hearing that as well?
Michelle Bachmann: Oh, we heard that when this was first being talked about when the bill was first coming forth before our committee before it even passed. We brought all those concerns up; that we would be looking at foreign banks and shareholders in foreign banks being made whole first before we’re dealing with taxpayers and with United States companies.
That is exactly what happened, what we were concerned about, and I think even more reason why the Fed needs to be held accountable to the taxpayer. Because when they’re busy printing money that’s impacting every taxpayer in the United States. We want a strong dollar, and I’m not here just to cast dispersions on the Fed, but to say that the Fed needs to have its doors opened a little ways so the American taxpayer can have some assurance about how our financial industry is being regulated.
Robert Gray: The secrets to the temple, as traders call it there. Representative Bachmann, we thank you so much for your time and for joining us today, and we hope to see you again.
Michelle Bachmann: Thank you.
Rebecca Diamond: We really appreciate it, Congresswoman. We’re really getting a lot of emails from your appearance.
Robert Gray: Yeah, you’re getting lot of attraction there. Lot of coments; pro, con and otherwise.
Reporter: Something is stirring on the U.S. politican scene: a libertarian group with real change on their minds, and the FreedomFest convention in Los Vegas is the perfect place to find them.
Ron Paul: You decide what’s good for you and what’s not.
Reporter: Including their fearless leader, Congressman Ron Paul.
Ron Paul: You belong to a unique group and you might feel frustrated at times as you say “well, we’re not 51% of the population”. And yet the effort and the value of a group like we have, that believe in liberty and understand it and is willing to work for it, it is like an army.
Reporter: Their demand is for the government to back off. Not right wing or left wing politics, but both economic and social freedom. An idea that’s inspiring many young people.
Ethan Czahor: This is the start of something that could be a great movement in 2012, 2016 down the road, and I want to be here at the beginning and want to just get the ball rolling.
Participant: A few years ago I had no views whatsoever, and I didn’t care about politics or economics. I became interested and found myself aligned with this group.
Alexander McCobin: We need to have students in the next generation of leaders stepping up to really take charge of their own lives and be able to protect their rights.
Reporter: One of the next generation leaders just could be Adam Kokesh, an Iraq veteran against the war, and a new congressional candidate from New Mexico. The power lies in his ideals and not in choosing a political party.
Adam Kokesh: We have a Democratic Party in charge that ran on a platform that they are not enacting. We had a government that’s out of control and totally out of balance with the Constitution. We believe that’s what it’s about; bringing us back to the agreed upon rules for society, just for starters.
Reporter: Washington better look out. Las Vegas is giving freedom a chance to breath. Call them freedom fighters or a bunch of angry people trying to bring down the system, one thing is for sure: this event is gaining momentum. And unless they see a drastic change in the way things are run here in America they will be back again next year for another FreedomFest. Linda Mayhosky, RT, Las Vegas.
This is an eBay auction for an original painting of “Ron Paul: Champion of the Constitution” direct from the artist, Carl Bork.
Size: 16″ by 20″
Medium: Oil on Canvas – fixed on panel
Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill is gaining support and to celebrate and support this historic event, Carl Bork decided to create this painting. He will donate 25% of the final bid to the winner’s liberty related group of their choosing (40% if bidding goes past $1,200).
For almost a century, the secretive and unaccountable Federal Reserve has silently manipulated the economy and the value of the dollar, and they are understandably upset about the increased scrutiny and criticism their abnormal and undemocratic activities have started to attract. In his latest column, Ron Paul explains why this arcane institution is doing everything in its power to preserve its ability to quietly create and spend trillions of dollars, make deals with other central banks, engage in backdoor negotiations with foreign governments, and bail out its cronies as it sees fit.
Fed Independence or Fed Secrecy?
by Ron Paul
Last week I was very pleased that hearings were held on the independence of the Federal Reserve system. My bill HR 1207, known as the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, was discussed at length, as well as the general question of whether or not the Federal Reserve should continue to operate independently.
The hearings on Capitol Hill provided us with a great deal of information about the types of arguments that will be levied against meaningful transparency and how the secretive central bankers will defend the status quo that is so beneficial to them.
Claims are made that auditing the Fed would compromise its independence. However, by independence, they really mean secrecy. The Fed clearly cherishes its vast power to create and spend trillions of dollars, diluting the value of every other dollar in circulation, making deals with other central banks, and bailing out cronies, all to the detriment of the taxpayer, and to the enrichment of themselves. I am happy to challenge this type of “independence”.
They claim the Fed is endowed with special intellectual abilities with which to control the market and that central bankers magically know what the market needs. We should just trust them. This is patently ridiculous. The market is a complex and intricate thing. No one knows what the market needs other than the market itself. It sends signals, such as prices, that should be reacted to and respected, not thwarted and controlled. Bankers are not all-knowing and cannot ignore the rules of supply and demand. They might act as if they are, but their manipulation of the market just ends up throwing it wildly off balance, which gives us the boom and bust cycles.
They claim the Fed must remain apolitical. No organization is apolitical that relies on the President to appoint the Chairman. In fact, it is subject to the worst sort of politics – power to create trillions of dollars and affect the value of every dollar in the country without the accountability of direct elections or meaningful oversight! The Fed typically enacts monetary policy that is favorable to particular administrations close to elections, to the detriment of long term considerations. They do this partly because of the political appointee process for the Chairmanship.
The only accountability the Federal Reserve has is ultimately to Congress, which granted its charter and can revoke it at any time. It is Congress’s constitutional duty to protect the value of the money, and they have abdicated this responsibility for far too long. This was the issue that got me involved in politics 35 years ago. It is very encouraging to finally see the issue getting some needed exposure and traction. It is regrettable that it took a crisis of this magnitude to get a serious debate on this issue.
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Ronald Reagan and Ron Paul
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