Senate Sellout Threatens Congressman Paul’s “Audit the Fed” Bill

“Bernie Sanders has sold out and sided with Chris Dodd to gut Audit the Fed in the Senate. His “compromise” is what the Administration and banking interests want: they’ll allow the TARP and TALF to be audited, but no transparency of the FOMC, discount window operations or agreement with foreign central banks. We need to take action and stop this!” -Ron Paul

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) expressed disappointment that his landmark legislation to audit the Federal Reserve Bank – which passed by a wide margin in the House Financial Services committee and has over 319 House co-sponsors – was threatened by a compromise in the Senate today.

More specifically, Paul’s language (passed by the House) to audit the Federal Reserve has been stripped from the Sanders Amendment to the Senate financial reform bill. Instead, the Sanders Amendment now contains softer compromise language that exempts monetary policy decisions, discount window operations, and agreements with foreign central banks from Government Accounting Office (“GAO”) audit.

This is of particular concern when several countries such as Greece, Portugal, and Spain are seeking IMF help in the midst of their financial crises, because American taxpayers provide fully 17% of all IMF funding.

“Taxpayers are weary of bailing out privileged banks and corporations in the US, and we certainly cannot afford to bail out entire countries. The possibility of this happening behind a veil of Federal Reserve secrecy is not acceptable,” stated Congressman Paul. “This compromise language represents a huge missed opportunity by Congress to finally make the Fed accountable for trillions of taxpayer dollars it administers. Full transparency, via a full GAO audit, is the only acceptable option. However, I am grateful to Senator Vitter for offering the original full audit language in an alternative amendment to the bill.”

Senate Sellout Threatens Ron Paul's Audit the Fed Bill