(NaturalNews) Ron Paul doesn't have many legislative victories, but when he does, it's a monumental event.
Paul, the Libertarian-leaning Republican lawmaker from Texas with a penchant for upsetting the GOP establishment and a loathing for the status quo, just happens to also be the Federal Reserve's biggest critic.
For years Paul - who has still yet to officially withdraw from his quest for the GOP presidential nomination that is now Mitt Romney's in everything but name - has pushed for more transparency at the Fed. From within the organization and from Congress itself, he's been stymied at every turn.
That all changed earlier this week when - finally - he found satisfaction.
Time for Congress to 'reassert ourselves'
The House on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly - 327-98 - in favor of legislation he offered that would require a full audit of all the central bank's practices. The bill, called the Federal Reserve Transparency Act (H.R. 459) "essentially removes the prohibitions against a full audit," Paul said.
Current rules allow the non-partisan Government Accountability Office to audit most aspects of the Fed's activities. But an examination of the central bank's monetary policy decisions is off limits.
Paul's bill will close that regulatory gap.
"It is up to us to reassert ourselves," Paul said during floor debate earlier this week, referring to lawmakers in general.
"To audit, we should know what kind of transactions there are," he said. "We should know about the deals that they made when they were fixing the price of Libor. These are the kinds of things that have gone on for years that we have no access to."
Libor refers to the London Interbank Offered Rate. Earlier this month the New York Federal Reserve bank said it knew that London banks were under-reporting borrowing costs, which in turn altered the Libor - a tactic the NY Fed believes was done to boost profits.
Some still want secrecy
Opponents of the measure, including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, testified earlier that giving the government full audit capabilities over the central bank would amount to a "nightmare scenario," because he believes it will lead to political interference.
"It seems to me what we're talking about is taking some fake punches at the Federal Reserve but not doing anything serious," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, added.
"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," Frank said. "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."
Paul says if its politicization of the Fed that some are worried about, that's already been occurring. He said the Fed, through political and corporate cronyism, has picked industries to support - and to ignore. Some financial institutions have been bailed out by the Fed, which essentially created the bailout money out of thin air, while others have not.
"It's very political when you have a Federal Reserve that can bail out one company and not another company," Paul said. "That's pretty political."
The House passed it - But now what?
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa agreed, noting that Congress - purposefully or by accident - has, through the years, relinquished its oversight role.
"In recent years, the Fed's extraordinary interventions into the economy's fiscal markets have led some to call into question its independence," said Issa, R-Calif. "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 year."
The bill has moved to the Senate where its majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, once favored an audit of the Fed.
Now; however, since it is no longer his idea, he seems to have changed his mind.
http://www.washingtontimes.com
http://thehill.com
http://www.federalreserve.gov/
http://www.naturalnews.com/Federal_Reserve.html
July 29, 2012
Ron Paul's 'Audit-the-Fed' bill passes the House
October 12, 2011
Herman Cain Claims He Never Opposed Audit of the Federal Reserve.
Establishment favorite and former Federal Reserve insider Herman Cain brazenly lied during last night’s Republican debate when he denied that he had opposed an audit of the Fed, a claim that was proven false within hours by Ron Paul’s campaign team.
Pointing out that the majority of Americans want to see a full audit of the Federal Reserve, Congressman Ron Paul asked Cain if he stood by his position that it would be frivolous to audit the Fed on a regular basis, as well as his characterization of those who are calling for such measures as ignorant.
Cain responded by claiming he never dismissed Ron Paul or his supporters as “ignorant” for asking about the Federal Reserve, and that the error was down to Paul believing what he read on the Internet. Technically Cain is correct, because he didn’t call Ron Paul supporters “ignorant,” worse still, in his own book Cain dismissed them as “stupid” and ludicrously suggested that the Paul campaign was deliberately sending out supporters to harass Cain with questions about the Federal Reserve.
Cain brazenly lied in the next breath when he claimed, “I do not object to the Federal Reserve being audited, I simply said if someone wants to initiate that action go right ahead, it doesn’t bother me,” adding that he had been “misrepresented” and didn’t have a problem with the Fed being audited, before robotically repeating his “9,9,9″ tax hike agenda.
Within hours, the Paul campaign responded by pointing out precisely where Cain had expressed his opposition to auditing the Fed, with the aid of the very same Internet that Cain derided as an inaccurate source of information.
Unfortunately for the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, the world wide web turned out to be very accurate in documenting Cain’s deception.
On December 29, 2010, Cain, former director and chairman at the Kansas City Federal Reserve, said the following.
“Some people say that we ought to audit the Fed. Here’s what I do know. The Federal Reserve already has so many internal audits it’s ridiculous. I don’t know why people think we’re gonna learn this great amount of information by auditing the Federal Reserve. I think a lot of people are calling for this audit of the Federal Reserve because they don’t know enough about it. There’s no hidden secrets going on in the Federal Reserve to my knowledge.”
Not only has Cain been exposed as a liar on prime time television, but the controversy also throws fresh spotlight on his ridiculous claim that the Fed has not acted in secrecy.
As we have since learned, most of the secret $16 trillion in Federal Reserve bailout funds between 2008 and 2010 went to foreign banks in places like Belgium, Japan and Libya.
“The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record,” reported Bloomberg.
Before the Federal Reserve was legally forced to disclose the details of where the bailout money went, Chairman Ben Bernanke attempted to hide its destination by refusing to tell elected Congressmen like Alan Grayson and Ron Paul which financial institutions received bailout funds.
No “hidden secrets,” then Herman?
Cain’s total disregard for the truth and his transparent efforts to cover-up his sympathies for the Federal Reserve, the very source of America’s economic decline, by lying to the American people on national television, should torpedo any notion that Cain should even be considered as a Republican presidential candidate.
Just like Rick Perry before him, expect Cain’s campaign, backed by his “9,9,9″ gimmick, which would increase taxes for middle class Americans, to crash and burn as more spotlight is thrown on his Federal Reserve connections.