Alan Grayson To The Fed: 'We'll Be Back'

[bobbyw24]

The Wall Street reform package currently awaiting the return of Congress from the Fourth of July recess is packed with provisions that will remake the financial landscape. One element, though, which has gotten relatively little attention in the media, is a wild card: the authorization of a far-reaching audit of the Federal Reserve for the first time in the central bank's history.

The audit measure is retroactive -- it requires unprecedented disclosure of the identity of businesses, banks, hedge funds, foreign central banks or any other entity that was on the receiving end of Fed largess, and will reveal how much they got and on what terms. The information is required to be posted online within 30 days of the law's enactment.

Depending on what the audit turns up, the Fed could find itself back in the public eye and could face growing calls for reform. "I think once people see what the first audit discloses, they're going to want to see more," said Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who, along with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), shepherded the audit bill through the House. "We'll be back."

Paul first got involved in the effort to audit the Fed in the 1970s, he said, signing on to bills by Texas Democrat Henry Gonzalez, whose chief investigator has since written the definitive book on Fed opacity.

"It was one of the motivating factors for me to be involved in politics," Paul said of Fed secrecy. Grayson, meanwhile, was in his first term. "I did know when we started this that this was a bill that had been introduced over and over again for 26 years," said Grayson.

Popular interest in the Fed, which flowed from Paul's insurgent GOP presidential primary bid and was stirred by the central bank's expansive role staving off a financial-system collapse, which flooding banks with billions of dollars. Grayson's committee interrogations of Fed officials, from Chairman Ben Bernanke on down, have garnered millions of views online.

"It wasn't me lobbying that got all those signatures," said Paul. "It was the issue, how well it was popularized. I think certain Web pages were of tremendous help, both coming from the left and the right and the middle."

More

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/09/alan-grayson-to-the-fed-w_n_641244.html

[jmdrake]

Wait. I thought the audit the fed part got stripped out? Or maybe it just got watered down? Anyway, I'll take even a small victory.

[bobbyw24]

Bump for Sat morning readers

[therepublic]

Ron Paul says this about the matter:

However, House and Senate negotiators failed to include the full language of my legislation in the conference report for the financial reform bill, and the full Congress missed yet another opportunity to demand accountability from the Federal Reserve by defeating the Republicans’ motion to recommit. Over 320 members of Congress from both parties cosponsored my original bill, which was incorporated into that motion to recommit. Almost 200 members of Congress who care about Federal Reserve transparency voted for this motion to recommit. Unfortunately, they found themselves in the minority.

Any legitimate objections to the audit proposal were addressed in the language of the motion to recommit. Thus, it is clear that the real reasons for opposing it are unstated and indefensible. The real reasons are that politicians like to spend money far exceeding income and it is convenient to have an enabler of this in the Federal Reserve. The easier it is for the Fed to create money, hidden from public view and accountability, the easier it is for politicians to spend that money and make sure their friends and interests are taken care of through shady political processes.

The broader reasons for supporting this entire financial regulatory reform bill are just as sinister. This is not about cracking down on big banks as some claim. Rather, this is about not wasting a crisis. This is about using a traumatic event to increase government power and control over the economy. If it was really about addressing the causes of this recession, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have been dealt with, or abolished. Failed companies would just fail, rather than being bailed out. Instead, a permanent bailout mechanism is being established. The Fed, and its ability to control interest rates and create cheap money, would be reformed or better yet, abolished. But instead its power is being increased and this Congress refuses to even fully audit it!

So yet again in the midst of a crisis, government insists on acting, and in ways far outside the scope of the Constitution, hoping that the crisis gives them cover. The truth is that in crises is when we need Constitutional limitations the most.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1001

[lester1/2jr]

indeed. it's not over