Kucinich: Federal Reserve ‘acts like it’s some kind of high exalted priesthood’ [VIDEO]
Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich wants Congress to pass a bill sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul that would give the Government Accountability Office the authority to fully audit the Federal Reserve, which Kucinich says “acts like it’s some kind of high exalted priesthood.”
“This is all about disclosure and accountability. You know, the Fed’s not some kind of hocus pocus, black box operation. The Fed essentially supplants the constitutional mandate in Article 1, Section 8, that belongs to the Congress of the United States,” Kucinich said in a speech on the House floor Tuesday.
“Let’s look at some recent history here. 2008: subprime meltdown, collateralized debt obligation, go back for mortgage-backed securities, neighborhoods in Cleveland melting down, people losing their homes. The Fed looked the other way and we’re saying, ‘oh, don’t go into the Fed, it would be political.’ Yes, it’s political. We have unemployment because of politics. We have people losing their homes because of politics. We have banks getting uncalculated amounts of money from the Federal Reserve and we don’t even know about it. Meanwhile people can’t get a loan to keep their home or keep their business.”
In their speeches on the House floor Tuesday, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank said they oppose the legislation.
Despite this, Kucinich said: “you bet we should audit the Fed. We have to have accountability.”
“It’s time that Congress stood for its constitutional role: Article 1, Section 8, the power to coin or create money. It’s time we stood up for America’s 99 percent,” said Kucinich. “It’s time that we stood up to the Federal Reserve that right now acts like it’s some kind of high exalted priesthood, unaccountable in a democracy.”
I dare them to say that with a straight face.
Auditing the institutions that spend public monies. What a novel concept.
We need to give Congress more control over the Fed’s day to day decision making, because they’ve done such a good job with their spending authority.
And they have a cow about “privatizing” social security....
Sounds like Issa has a new project to undertake once Holder and gang have been renditioned to Guant.
“If you want to keep monetary policy non-political, you’ve got to continue to let our side rob you blind.”
These guys are running the perfect crony capitalist con and now Ron Paul want to horn in on their racket and politicize it. Fer Chrissakes, that is what politics is at its best, an argument about how best to use public resources. Sorry to turn your neat efficient racket into a public squabble. Really!
One half of the Fed’s mission - to lift employment - IS political.
Fixing it’s mission might help take the political goals out of that mission.
Why does the political class want the existing political mission left in the Fed’s charter?
It’s the legal demand that the Fed go and try to counter all the bad effects that government policy has had on the economy, through manipulating the money supply and monetary values to pump back into the economy, through inflation, what government tax and regulatory policy has taken out. Start removing the later and you can remove the former.
Audit but terminate the Reserve. This is the biggest scam in world history, creating MOOTA (Money Out Of Thin Air). If you gave me the _right_ to loan money which I didn’t even have; I should be rich quickly or be dumb. Dumb like so many are to allow this high crime to continue.
Congress is told to own USA money as coinage by USC (period).
“That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.
Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.
But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good.”
— Thomas Edison, via NYT
Paul is an idiot.
The Federal Reserve already is audited by Deloitte & Touche. Every dollar is accounted for.
Congress doesn't need to be looking over the shoulder of the FED second guessing their policy decisions.
The FED has kept year to year fluctuations in the dollar far more stable than year to year fluctuations under the gold standard which sometimes fluctuated 20% in a year.
The Fed has also avoided deflation which is associated with depressions, by targeting a small amount of inflation each year, which works well for business and everyone except those that want to hoard dollar bills in their mattress for 50 years instead of invest them.
Finally, the Fed didn't cause the debt, Congress did.
So? Do it anyway.