Ron Paul Slams Fed Audit Compromise

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has for the past 30 years argued for a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve’s books (as well as a gradual unwinding of the country’s central bank). Today, the Senate will vote on a watered-down version of his proposal — a one-time audit, rather than continual audit, of most of the Fed’s facilities. And Paul does not like it.

On his personal website, he writes:

The new language of the Sanders Amendment requires a one-time disclosure from the Fed of 13(3) facilities, foreign currency swaps and mortgage-backed securities. Basically, their sins of the past would be revealed and Americans would know more about who got bailed out by the Fed and under what terms.  This would be good, but its not nearly enough.

Taxpayers are sick and tired of bailing out privileged, dysfunctional institutions that should be allowed to fail in order to stop their ability to wreak havoc on our economy. Perpetuating these corporations at taxpayer expense is not just wasteful, it is actively harmful.  It would be good to know what went on in the past, but what about accountability in the future?  A one-time disclosure now will not do us a lot of good down the road when the cycle repeats itself and friends of the Fed find themselves in trouble again.

More importantly, agreements with foreign central banks are not touched by the new Sanders Amendment language.  At a time when Greece, Portugal, Spain and other countries are experiencing dire financial crises and have their hands out to the international community, we need to know if our Federal Reserve is at all involved in bailing them out. As weary as we are of bailing out companies, the American people would not stand for bailing out entire countries. Our government is wasteful enough in its own affairs without contributing to the waste of other countries.  Yet the Fed currently has the tools it needs to do just this, and to do it in secret.

Starting at 11:30 a.m. today, the Senate plans to vote on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) Audit the Fed compromise, which has broad bipartisan support.