By
Steven Nelson Sept. 16, 2014 | 1:21 p.m. EDT
The House of Representatives is expected to vote Tuesday evening in favor of auditing the Federal Reserve banking system.
The proposal, a signature cause of retired libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, will likely win broad support.
Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., is sponsoring the bill – the Federal Reserve Transparency Act – with 228 co-sponsors, more than half of the House's membership. A majority of Republicans and 19 Democrats are on board.
The bill would require a comprehensive audit of the banking system within one year of enactment.
A previous version of the legislation won 327-98 support in July 2012 – despite the
defection of eight co-sponsors – but went nowhere in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
supported auditing the Fed in the 1990s, but refused to allow a Senate vote.
“It’s going to be up to the Senate,”
Broun tells U.S. News. “The best way to get it put into law is for people all across this country to contact their senators and demand that we pass an 'audit the Fed' bill – if enough pressure is put on all those senators we'll have it on the floor and it will pass."
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is sponsoring companion legislation in the Senate with 30 co-sponsors.
A partial audit of the Federal Reserve in 2011 ordered by the Dodd-Frank financial reform act
found the banking system loaned $16 trillion to financial institutions – including more than $3 trillion to foreign banks – from 2007-2010, infuriating some members of Congress who said there was no public notice or congressional oversight of those loans.
Broun says Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibility to manage the U.S. money supply when it created the Federal Reserve in 1913 and wants to abolish the independent institution.
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