Federal Reserve Needs to be Audited

The Federal Reserve has worked in a cloak of secrecy since it's inception in 1913 and, according to Ron Paul, is run by bankers for the benefit of politicians and other bankers. Quote: "Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation.”

It is time for an audit to determine what is really going on.


Excerpt: Rahm Working With Fed To Beat Back Audit

The White House, Federal Reserve and Wall Street lobbyists are kicking up their opposition to an amendment to audit the Fed as a Senate vote approaches, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the lead sponsor of the measure, said on Monday.

Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who is shepherding the bill through the Senate, told Sanders Monday afternoon that "there's a shot we'll be up tomorrow," Sanders told HuffPost.

In the spring of 2009, Sanders brought a similar amendment to the Senate floor and won 59 votes. Eight senators who voted against it then are now cosponsors of his current measure.

"I think momentum is with us. But I've gotta tell you, that on this amendment, you're taking on all of Wall Street, you're taking on the Fed, obviously, and unfortunately you seem to be taking on the White House, as well. And that's a tough group to beat," said Sanders.

Earlier on Monday, HuffPost reported that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan wanted dissent kept secret so that people outside the Fed wouldn't involve themselves in their debates.

"We run the risk, by laying out the pros and cons of a particular argument, of inducing people to join in on the debate, and in this regard it is possible to lose control of a process that only we fully understand," Greenspan said, according to the transcripts of a March 2004 meeting. "I'm a little concerned about other people getting into the debate when they know far less than we do."

Sanders said that Greenspan's comments are all the more reason for an audit. "I think it just adds a lot of weight to what we are trying to do," Sanders said. "It just points to the fact that if there was more transparency then it in fact would have allowed the debate to take place about the subprime mortgage [sic] unfolding crisis at that point. It may have prevented the horrendous recession that we're in now and the near collapse of the financial institutions." Read current Huffington Post article here


2009 Excerpt: Audit the Federal Reserve: HR 1207 and S 604

The Federal Reserve is the chief culprit behind the economic crisis. Its unchecked power to create unlimited amounts of money out of thin air brought us the boom and bust cycle and caused one financial bubble after another. Since the Fed’s creation in 1913 the dollar has lost more than 96% of its value, and by recklessly inflating the money supply the Fed continues to distort interest rates and intentionally erode the value of the dollar.

For the past 30 years, Congressman Ron Paul has worked tirelessly to bring much-needed transparency and accountability to the secretive bank. And in 2009 his unfaltering dedication showed astonishing results: HR 1207, the bill to audit the Federal Reserve, swept the country and made the central bankers shudder at their desks. The bill passed as an amendment both in the House Financial Services Committee and in the House itself.

But the usurpers of America’s future won’t take it lying down. They don’t want their secrets exposed and their magic money machine put under close scrutiny. At this very moment, they are working frantically behind the scenes to quietly derail all efforts to open up the Federal Reserve to an independent audit.

A handful of Fed-loving U.S. senators led by Chris Dodd rewrote the Senate version of the Financial Reform Bill to strip out Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed amendment and actually expand the Fed’s power over banks, lending and money. As Alan Grayson points out here, and Ron Paul comments on here, the Dodd bill completely eliminates legislation to audit the Federal Reserve, which already passed in the House. Read Ron Paul's position here.

Current status in Senate. Read Socialist and arch-conservative senators team up against Obama and the banks on Fed audit.