audit

Ron Paul's Last Stand - Audit the Fed

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audit fedCongressman Ron Paul has been after the Federal Reserve for decades. His last great act before retirement, to audit the Fed, just passed the House of Representatives. All but one Republican voted for the bill with Democrats split down the middle. Our more corporate Democrats voted against the bill. Now the Senate has vowed to not take up the bill.

A senior Democratic Senate leadership aide said there are no plans to bring the bill up in the Senate, but didn’t rule out an attempt by Republicans to seek a vote on the measure as part of another piece of legislation. The Senate would be almost certain to defeat it given the Democratic majority in the chamber.

Dems are busy claiming an audit would politicize monetary policy:

"This bill would instead jeopardize the Fed's independence by subjecting its decisions on interest rates and monetary policy to GAO audit," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). "I agree with [Fed] Chairman [Ben] 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.

Financial Reform Declared D.O.A.

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Financial Reform Legislation is D.O.A. according to Simon Johnson, an expert and watchdog on the Financial crisis. He is not alone in assessing the health of the patient.

At the end of the day, essentially nothing in the entire legislation will reduce the potential for massive system risk as we head into the next credit cycle.

That's right. What managed to get passed is now being stripped in conference, as we warned about and updated on here.

Now lobbyists are after the very weak version of the Volcker Rule:

To secure the support needed for their bill, Senate negotiators are leaning toward creating a series of exemptions to the Volcker Rule that would allow banks to continue to operate these businesses as investment funds that hold only client money, according to several Congressional aides, industry officials and lawyers.

Audit the Fed Under Attack

Why does the Obama administration want to kill the popular Senate Bernie Sanders amendment to audit the Fed? The amendment may be up for a vote later this week and there are reports the amendment vote will be hit with that magical, fictional 60 to pass, instead of 50, which is the norm for amendments.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Obama administration officials have declined to weigh in on any specific amendments, with one exception: a move by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) to give the government more power to audit certain operations at the Federal Reserve. Fed and administration officials have signaled they would fight to stop it at all costs. Mr. Sanders has more than a dozen co-sponsors.

At all costs. Really? Including a veto? What is wrong with wanting to know what happened to $2 trillion dollars? Why would the Obama administration demand to remove public disclosure out of the financial reform bill?