Who would you trust more when it comes to the Federal Reserve Board: Ron Paul or Chuck Schumer?
If you answered Schumer, who wants the Fed to pour more money into the economy and inflate the money supply in time for the 2012 election, please report to Democratic Party Headquarters to pick up your check.
Pau on the other hand, is sponsoring a bill that would require the Federal Reserve board to be audited regarding its monetary policy decisions. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, H.R. 459, requires the Fed to open up its books so the American public can see exactly how the Fed manipulates the money supply. The 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law expanded the auditing of the Fed, but it somehow missed auditing the Fed’s monetary policy decisions.
Shocking.
Democrats, panicked that their politicizing of the Fed might be stymied by a public accounting, were outraged at Paul’s proposal for transparency. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer whined:
“This bill would instead jeopardize the Fed’s independence by subjecting its decisions on interest rates and monetary policy to GAO audit. I agree with Chairman Bernanke that congressional review of the Fed’s monetary policy decisions would be a ‘nightmare scenario,’ especially judging by the track record of this Congress when it comes to governing effectively. Unfortunately … we in Congress have shown too frequently our inability in a political environment to make tough choices.”
Not to be outdone, Barney Frank, the House Financial Services Committee ranking member said that congressional interference with the Fed could create make financial markets nervous:
“They will see it as political interference, not with the contracting procedures, not with the budget, not with how many cars they have, but with how they decide on interest rates. And the perception that the Congress is going to politicize the way in which interest rates are set will in itself have a destabilizing effect.”
But Republicans were determined; Darrell Issa, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman said:
“GAO remains restricted under the current law from conducting a broader audit of the Fed that includes, for instance, a review of the Fed’s monetary policy operations, and its agreements with foreign governments and central banks. In recent years, the Fed’s extraordinary interventions into the economy’s fiscal markets have led some to call into question its independence. We do not ask for an audit for that reason, we ask for an audit because the American people ultimately must be able to hold the Fed accountable, and to do so, they must know at least in retrospect what the Fed has done over these many years.”
And Ron Paul was, as usual, unflinching in his desire to hold the Fed accountable:
“To say that we should have secrecy and say that it’s political to have transparency … well, it’s very political when you have a Federal Reserve that can bail out one company and not another company. That’s pretty political … We should have privacy for the individual, but we should have openness of government all the time, and we’ve drifted a long way from that.”
The liberal notion that sunlight will somehow politicize the Fed is absurd. It’s already politicized, and the left knows it. They just don’t want you to know it.
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