Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve continues to gain momentum. H.R. 1207 ^[1] now has 28 co-sponsors (as of 3/12/2009)!

If you too would like to see Ben Bernanke squirm ^[2] and finally discover what the Fed has been up to behind the scenes, call and write your representative and ask that they support the “Federal Reserve ^[3] Transparency Act H.R. 1207″.

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Here’s a sample letter you can use:

Dear Representative,

Please co-sponsor and/or support H.R.1207, an effort to audit the Federal Reserve ^[3].

Recently, it has come to light that there is little to no accountability to the people on the part of the Federal Reserve ^[3]. While the citizens of this country are required by law to give an accounting of every penny they come in contact with, the Federal Reserve has never been held to the same standard. During this time of extreme economic crisis, the people deserve an accounting of where our money is going.

Currently there are 11 co-sponsors for this legislation, and it is enjoying bi-partisan support. Your efforts in supporting this important legislation would go a long way in proving to your constituents that you not only hold the Federal Reserve to the same standard as you do your constituents, but it would also show that you believe in transparency. Anything less than support for this resolution suggests that you are in favor of secrecy and a lack of accountability to the people who pay the bills. We pay the tab; we have a right to know where our money is going.

Unlike recent bills that you voted in favor of that had hundreds of pages and just a few hours to read, this bill can be read in under 5 minutes. I encourage you to take the time to read it, and then move to support it.

Thank you in advance for your attention on this important legislation. I have every expectation that you will do right by your constituents and support this measure.

Sincerely,

Auditing the Fed is only the first step towards exposing this antiquated insider-run creature to the powerful forces of free-market competition. Once there are viable alternatives to the monopolistic fiat dollar ^[4], the Federal Reserve will have to become honest and transparent if it wants to remain in business.

Ron Paul introduced bill H.R. 1207 on February 26, 2009 with the following speech to Congress:

Madame Speaker,

I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar ^[4]. Since 1913 the dollar ^[4] has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation ^[3]? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation ^[3].

Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency.

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed’s susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and implemented, the Fed’s negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the Fed avoids both fates.

More importantly, the Fed’s funding facilities and its agreements with the Treasury should be reviewed. The Treasury’s supplementary financing accounts that fund Fed facilities allow the Treasury to funnel money to Wall Street without GAO or Congressional oversight. Additional funding facilities, such as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending Facility, allow the Fed to keep financial asset prices artificially inflated and subsidize poorly performing financial firms.

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. We hear officials constantly lauding the benefits of transparency and especially bemoaning the opacity of the Fed, its monetary policy, and its funding facilities. By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

This is the bill itself, H.R. 1207:

111th Congress - 1st Session
To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.

H.R. 1207

A BILL
 

1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009″.

SEC. 2. AUDIT REFORM AND TRANSPARENCY FOR THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM.

(a) IN GENERAL. - Subsection (b) of section 714 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking all after “shall audit an agency” and inserting a period.

(b) AUDIT. - Section 714 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

“(e) AUDIT AND REPORT OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM. -

“(1) IN GENERAL. - The audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks under subsection (b) shall be completed before the end of 2010.

“(2) REPORT -

“(A) REQUIRED. - A report on the audit referred to in paragraph (1) shall be submitted by the Comptroller General to the Congress before the end of the 90-day period beginning on the date on which such audit is completed and made available to the Speaker of the House, the majority and minority leaders of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the committee and each sub-committee of jurisdiction in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and any other Member of Congress who requests it.

“(B) CONTENTS. - The report under subparagraph (A) shall include a detailed description of the findings and conclusion of the Comptroller General with respect to the audit that is the subject of the report, together with such recommendations for legislative or administrative action as the Comptroller General may determine to be appropriate.”.

Sponsor

Rep. Ronald Paul [R-TX]

28 Cosponsors [as of 2009-03-12]

Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1]
Rep Alexander, Rodney [LA-5]
Rep Bachmann, Michele [MN-6]
Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6]
Rep Broun, Paul C. [GA-10]
Rep Burton, Dan [IN-5]
Rep Chaffetz, Jason [UT-3]
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4]
Rep Duncan, John J., Jr. [TN-2]
Rep Foxx, Virginia [NC-5]
Rep Garrett, Scott [NJ-5]
Rep Grayson, Alan [FL-8]
Rep Heller, Dean [NV-2]
Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr. [NC-3]
Rep Kagen, Steve [WI-8]
Rep Kingston, Jack [GA-1]
Rep Marchant, Kenny [TX-24]
Rep McClintock, Tom [CA-4]
Rep Petri, Thomas E. [WI-6]
Rep Poe, Ted [TX-2]
Rep Posey, Bill [FL-15]
Rep Price, Tom [GA-6]
Rep Rehberg, Denny [MT]
Rep Rohrabacher, Dana [CA-46]
Rep Stearns, Cliff [FL-6]
Rep Taylor, Gene [MS-4]
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6]
Rep Young, Don [AK]

Excerpt from Ron Paul’s 3/5/2009 appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch:

Judge Napolitano: Before we switch gears, Congressman Paul, how did Ben Bernanke react to the legislation that you introduced calling for an audit of the Fed. Did he give you a call on the phone?

Ron Paul: Oh yes, he called me, wanted to congratulate me and he wanted to support my bill. You know, interestingly, just recently, I cannot name his name but I was talking to a former member of the Federal Reserve board and told him about the bill and he was friendly enough.

I said, “What do you think of that?” He said, “I think it’s not a very good idea”. And I said, “Do the people at the Federal Reserve ever talk about, are concerned about the dollar”. I said, you know, I’m always talking about the dollar and what this is going to do to the dollar. And I said, “Do they know that all this debt and inflation could hurt the dollar?” He says, “Yes, they do.” He confirmed it. He said, “They absolutely do.” He says, “But they can’t answer your questions in public because it would cause panic.”

Judge Napolitano: This administration came to power and we all knew the words that they used, “hope” and “change”. But one of the words that they really used was “transparency”. I would think the President himself should be in favor of transparency at the Fed if he wants to be ideologically consistent. What are they afraid we will find out, Congressman Paul?

Ron Paul: Well, what they’re going to find out is, that’s the first step. Once we get the audit bill passed and we can reveal what they are doing, I think the next step is to end the Fed. That’s why they don’t want that.

You know, we had some very good comments made by our Senator Bernie Sanders yesterday from Vermont. I talked with him this morning and we’re going to be talking a lot about the need for having transparency.

And I think the mood is right. The mood is right both with the Democrats and the Republicans, because they don’t know exactly what is going on but they know the American people are sick and tired of just throwing money out there, whether it’s to the Treasury and nobody knows where it goes, whether they send it to Iraq and nobody knows where the bundles of money go, or whether the Federal Reserve can create 2 trillion dollars, and they don’t even have to tell us.

As a government all onto itself, it’s bigger than the whole U.S. Congress. They create trillions in a day, you know, in a short period of time, and in the Congress we do talk a little bit when we pass 400 million or 800 million. But the Fed is a much bigger problem.

Excerpt from Ron Paul’s 3/10/2009 interview with Alex Jones:

Alex Jones: Every few weeks they come before the banking committee and you bring up the fact that what they are doing is destroying us. What do we need to do to bring the private Federal Reserve under control?

Ron Paul: Well, there has to be an uprising by the people. There has to be enough people who will demand that their Congressmen respond, and that is building. You know, a year or two ago nobody in Washington even thought about the Federal Reserve. Today there is a lot more thinking going on and a lot more support for our position. So it is growing. And yet, we’re not on the verge of changing it. I have the bill to get rid of the Federal Reserve, that’s the major step and the ultimate step and they’ll probably self-destruct before we actually pass legislation.

But the bill that is more important in the short run is the auditing bill, the 1207 bill, because that means they have to start answering our questions. Today they are protected. They are in total secrecy and they are protected by the law. If 1207 is passed we have an audit and they have to answer the questions. And I figure if we ever get that far and get the exposure and get the transparency that we need, then people will wake up and realize, ‘why do we have them at all?’

Alex Jones: Senator Sanders grilled them, as you know, last week saying that he is supporting 1207 or a version in the Senate because, Bernanke, the private Fed chief just said, “I’m not going to tell you where the money, buddy.” I mean, that’s amazing to see our elected Congress, the most powerful branch of the government according to our founders, being told to kiss off.

Ron Paul: Right, and I know Sanders real well. He was on the banking committee with me before he went into the Senate, and I called him after that, and I believe he has now introduced my version of the transparency bill and I’ve introduced his version. So both bills exist. Mine is a little bit more conclusive, in that it removes the total authority for them to not answer questions. His is specifically designed to answer certain questions and reveal where certain trillion dollars went. They are very similar, but somewhat different in nature, so we both support each other’s bill and they’ve been introduced in both chambers.

Alex Jones: Well, public support for this and the majority of the Congress itself are saying they are angry, they don’t know where the money is and Bloomberg sued to find out and he’s been told No on their foyer. If this gets media attention I can see now way that Congress wouldn’t vote for a proper audit of the private Federal Reserve.

Ron Paul: They’re going to, if we can get it that far. It’s a good issue, like so many of our issues, we bring different many factions together, liberals and conservatives, under the constitution. Because, if you’re a good honest liberal like Bernie Sanders, he is an honest person but is very, very liberal. He calls himself a socialist, but he agrees on the transparency issue.

So this whole idea that we expose them to bring populists, libertarians, constitutionals, liberals, socialist all together and think, “If we can’t do this, what’s left of representative government? There’s nothing left.” So it’s a good unifier, I think it’s a great issue.