Bill to Clamp Down On Federal Reserve Gains Steam

By Bob Livingston • Apr 13th, 2009 •

Rep. Ron Paul is pushing a bill (H.R.1207) that calls for the comptroller general of the United States to audit the Federal Reserve. And the bill is gaining steam as more members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, sign on.

The bill is called the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, and it requires an audit of the Fed’s Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Banks be completed and reported to Congress by the end of 2010.

The Federal Reserve is a government-established private entity that can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments. However, no agency has oversight over the Fed and the Government Accounting Office is prohibited from auditing or viewing any agreements. So no one, except for the Fed’s Board of Governors, truly knows what’s going on there.

According to reports, Paul says every problem with the American economy from the Great Depression to the current crisis results from Federal Reserve policy. It’s true. The Fed’s manipulation of money has led to inflation and a devaluation of the dollar that’s robbed the American people of their wealth.

No less an expert than former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan agrees. In a 1966 essay entitled Gold and Economic Freedom, Greenspan wrote:

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.”

The Constitution gives Congress the right “to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures” in Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5.

The Fed is a non-constitutional institution created in 1913. It was given a monopoly on the issue of all bank notes, and national and state banks could only issue deposits redeemable in Federal Reserve Notes or gold (gold ownership was outlawed 20 years later then reinstated in 1975). All national banks were forced to become members of the Federal Reserve.

The U.S. Government is out of control in many respects, and the Federal Reserve is one of them. Congress’ policies of increasing spending to prop up failing businesses, fund entitlements and expand government and pay for it by having the Fed print fiat money (money no longer backed by gold) are responsible for the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth around the globe.

This bill by Paul—now co-sponsored by 28 legislators—is a step toward fiscal responsibility. Perhaps, if it passes, the bill will show the masses the great fraud that has been perpetrated on them for the last 96 years.

Once that is done maybe, just maybe, a loud hue and cry from the masses will ensue, our country will go back to a gold standard, and some of the madness will end.