In a move that serves as a capstone to Rep. Ron Paul’s colorful career, the House on Wednesday approved a bill that would let Congress’s chief investigators conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve’s shrouded decision-making process.
The overwhelming 327-98 vote sends the bill to the Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has previously expressed support for an audit — though it’s unclear he’ll carve out time for the legislation this year.
But House passage already marks a high-water mark for those who for years have been pushing for an audit, led by Mr. Paul. The Texas Republican rode the issue to prominence in two different presidential campaigns, and said the bill is a chance for Congress to begin to reclaim the money and banking powers it is given in the Constitution, but had delegated to the Fed.
“It is up to us to reassert ourselves,” Mr. Paul said during floor debate Tuesday.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke doesn’t like the prospect of such a broad audit, calling it a “nightmare scenario” last week and saying it will lead to politicians second-guessing his decisions.
Opposition in Congress came chiefly from Democrats who said they doubt the bill ever becomes law — but worried about sending a signal to financial markets that lawmakers want to intervene in financial affairs.
“It seems to me what we’re talking about is taking some fake punches at the Federal Reserve but not doing anything serious,” said Rep. Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.
The bill would grant the Government Accountability Office, which is Congress’s chief investigative arm, the power to retroactively review the Fed’s decision-making — particularly on monetary policy.
Yeah let’s wait till next year….we have plenty of time. After all, we don’t want to expose all the corruption before an election do we?
Let the sunlight in, and the dominoes fall where they will.
Predictions: all kinds of slimy self dealing and corruption will be shown. Cats and Dogs sleeping together, rich private citizens being given loans that are not repaid, and so forth.
Outcome: not one damn thing. Obama, and anyone else with a pretense to power, will continue to look forward.
Same as it always is.
Agreed.
Maybe not, Ron Paul was also recently announced on the ballot at the RNC. He’s quietly doing exactly what he said he would.
What RP said quietly was that he didn’t have a chance to change anything as the fix was in but he would continue to draw attention to the subject…. because you know mircacles might happen.
Not “some Democrats” but ONLY Democrats and MOST Democrats in Congress voted against. Democratic leader in Congress (she who should not be named) voted against too. That is not “some”. Dear Leftists – you have shown your colors. Now to bring those who voted for audit in power and to abolish this FED abomination for ever.
I believe one R voted against, but yes, I was trying to be generous.
Question: How could ANYONE be against accountability?
Vote them all out.
Your point is good but one sided.
The worse thing financial markets respond to is uncertainty. Having a bunch of rooky Teabaggers stick there big politically motivated heads in monetary decisions feels yucky.
I’m for improved accountability of government but let’s not have too many cooks in this kitchen.
Technically, as per the U.S. Constitution, it’s their job to manage the money (unless you consider the Constitution just a GD’d piece of paper).
But seeing as they don’t want to be responsible for something as trivial as not spending more than they take, I’ll settle for the second guessing.
It’s amazing how stupid that sounds. I like the sentiment, but it’s still pretty damn stupid.
Here’s one little FACT that you don’t seem to understand: The Federal Reserve is about as “Federal” and Federal Express is!
And just because the U.S. President gets to assign the Federal Reserve’s chairman of the board does NOT mean WE DO! The POTUS gets his list of choices from the actual PRIVATE board members. Therefore, it sure LOOKS like the Federal Reserve is a branch of the government, but make no mistake – IT ISN’T!
Very few people realize this.
Its more like the other way around. They own us.
The Reserve board, never mind the chairman, is selected from a short list of eligible banksters.
The POTUS has only the power to go enie, meenie, miney, mo.
Sorry but this is way overdue, and damn the torpedoes. I could give a shit who gets their feelings hurt.
If we do somehow get disclosure, I guarantee the Republicans won’t come out smelling any better than the Dems.
Bingo!
And that’s why the House passed it. They know the Senate will shut it down.
It’s all Theater.
Shakespeare would be proud.
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself!
Because having a bunch of experienced crooks sticking their piggy hands into monetary decisions is working out so great huh?
What is the education level(not party schools, or FATHER PAID for the A” grade) do these people have..
WHAT TESTS would you give to a person running into an elected JOB??
An I.Q. Test would be helpful.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke doesn’t like the prospect of such a broad audit, calling it a “nightmare scenario” last week and saying it will lead to politicians second-guessing his decisions.
Ben,
IT’S THEIR FRAKKING JOB TO SECOND GUESS YOU!!!
Thanks. I was about to say that.
The financial Czar of the World does not wish to be questioned.
Questions require answers.
What will be the questions?
Will there be hard questions, or will this be another dog and pony show?
Dog and pony show to be sure!
It’s like a long running scandal where the mafia has been stealing for decades and where the very same cops have been part of it too.
If there’s ever going to be any kind of justice and reform it’s going to take nothing less of a revolution or some kind of outside pressure to make things right. And when (not if, but when) the dollar looses it’s status as some kind of standard we’ll probably start to see movement in that direction.
Yup. We really need Congress devising ideology for the central bank.
Like we need the Pentagon developing programs for peacetime employment.
LOL! They invented the Central Bank in the first place so they would be responsible. They wanted the money to flow but they wanted someone else to point the finger at when things went South.
How’s that for ideology?
The Central Bank has to go.
ROTFLMAO…
yeah they’ll “audit” when they know how to cover up and white wash the truth about what is really going on……
they just need a lil more time to doctor the books to make it look all good.
ISO 9000 comes to the Fed.
They’ll make sure that all the right paperwork is filled in properly, while having nothing to say on the direction the Titanic is sailing.
This is bogative.
I predict Ron Paul, the leader on this issue, may either be relegated to history’s footnotes on this or he might experience the same fate JKF did.
FYI: JFK tried to reign in the Federal Reserve by once having the U.S. Treasury issue money. Remember those funny looking bills with red printing on them? Look again at who issued them. And then look what happened to JFK when he stepped on the Feds toes like that!
This is a can of worms that desperately needs to be opened ever since 1913. And if Congress is successful in auditing the Federal Reserve (even though they don’t have the Constitutional power) I would then predict a nightmare paper chase that would make the Iran-Conrtra scandal look like a grade school math test cheating incident. Translated: The U.S. public will not pay attention cause the collective attention span that will be required isn’t even that of an average gerbil – and that’s assuming the press will even cover it!
Republicans pass this;
Dems reject it;
Political theater to make Obama look bad.
It’s going to work.
On this only one thing I agree with Paul that the Fed nees to have a house cleaning.
But the fed should never have been made. We should have gone with Hamilton’s idea of a real governmental Bank of America. Just like most civilised nations have.
But then our system should have been a meritocracy and not an oligarchy and we should have had limits on all governmental years of service.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Cursor_
If by meritocracy you mean “Browniepointocracy” I agree 😛
The Fed exists because the people were illiterate, inattentive, uninformed, and apathetic 100 years ago.
The wealthiest individuals in the world created a banking system to serve their own interests, not the interests of the people.
I agree with Ron Paul on a number of points, and I disagree on a few, but where would this issue be today without Ron Paul? No other politician is willing to touch the subject, much less educate people about it.
“While I have serious concerns about the Fed’s actions during the financial crisis in 2008 and the monetary easing since then, Congress should not attempt to politicize what should be an independent institution,” said Mr. Turner.
He said the independent agency already publishes minutes from some meetings and releases its balance sheets to the public.
Keywords: independent institution : independent agency
Mr. Turner has bought into the propaganda that the Fed is a benevolent power that looks out for the best interests of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Congressional control over the value of money is required by Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
The phrase in question (clause 5) states that the United States Congress shall have the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin…”
“Regulate the Value thereof” is a power reserved to the Congress.
There is no mention in the Constitution that our monetary system should be independent of Congress, in fact, it says the opposite.
Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution gives to the Congress certain broad enumerated powers.
Among these are the power to lay and collect taxes and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; to borrow money on the credit of the United States, to regulate interstate, foreign, and Indian commerce; (5) To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; and to create courts inferior to the Supreme Court among many others.
The section also gives to Congress the power to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States.“
The phrases emphasized in bold typeface cannot be construed to mean that any kind of independent agency, institution, or organization is authorized by the Constitution to control our monetary system.
The phrase “borrow money on the credit of the United States” does not suggest that credit is provided by an independent entity.
The language in this Article asserts the proper role of Congress to regulate money. The mechanism for regulating money is up to the whims of Congress.
I tend to agree with the Fed and suggest that this is likely to do more harm to the finances of government than good. The “gold bars” approach to central banking that our dear old Texan follows died in the last century. It limits the nations development to a stash of an unrenewable metalic resource. Then it goes, you starve.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.
Let us disappoint the Men who are raising themselves upon the ruin of this Country.
Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the “latent spark”… If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
— John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President
History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance.
All power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people. That government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty and the right of acquiring property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purpose of its institution.
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freeman of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.
All men having power ought to be mistrusted.
— James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
I’ll bet you dollars to donuts, that Bernanke will figure out away to stop this audit. Of course, this all depends on the Democrat controlled Senate passing it… and we all know the Democrats wouldn’t want to stop it, would they…
Interesting facts to ponder:
The United States Note vs. The Federal Reserve Note
The United States Note was a national currency whereas Federal Reserve Notes are issued by the quasi-federal Federal Reserve System. Both have been legal tender since the gold recall of 1933. Both have been used in circulation as money in the same way. However, the issuing authority for them came from different statutes.
United States Notes were created as fiat currency, in that the government has never categorically guaranteed to redeem them for precious metal – even though at times, such as after the specie resumption of 1879, federal officials were authorized to do so if requested.
The difference between a United States Note and a Federal Reserve Note is that a United States Note represented a “bill of credit” and was inserted by the Treasury directly into circulation free of interest.
Federal Reserve Notes are backed by debt purchased by the Federal Reserve, and thus generate seigniorage, or interest, for the Federal Reserve System, which serves as a lending intermediary between the Treasury and the public.
It’s long overdue, but Harry Reid will see to it that this bill doesn’t see the light of day IMHO.
More transparency is clearly in the public’s best interest.
It is my understanding the Dems in the Senate, Harry R., will kill it. The only reason I can come up with to do that is that is money crossed hands somewhere.
Congress loves bills like this. Bills and committees about such bills are called “money” bills or “money” committees. Meaning, they’ll get lobbied like hell, by big moneyed interests. To either promote or bury the legislation. The Congressmen don’t actually care what the bill is about, either way. Just as long as they are tons of lobbying dollars involved. So you can bet the major banks, and the super wealthy that controls them, will have their lobbyists camped out at Congressmen and Senators’ offices, the health spa, the gym, capitol hill restaurants, etc. Awaiting to push cash, checks, expensive dinners, gifts, and stock options, etc, their way. Just to insure they’ll obfuscate, inveigle, corrupt, adulterate, and nullify the legislation. To the point that it becomes meaningless. And so, if there is any Fed audit. It will be a toothless, ineffectual, secret audit. That just wastes time & money, going thru the motions. In any case, it would happen to well after the election.
I don’t wipe my butt with money, I wipe my butt with spam.
(what if Hormel were to send out a mass e-mail, would that cause a black hole?)
>> Ben Bernanke calling it a “nightmare scenario”
Oh right as if the rest of the country is having a wonderful time prospering by the choices the FED has made in the past century.
Fuck you Ben.. Suck it!
Funny how this bill never made it to law from 2000-2008 when the GOP owned the presidency, the house and the senate.
It seems the GOP was against it before they were for it.