Ron Paul Introduces Legislation To Get Rid Of Federal Reserve

Bill to eliminate the Fed introduced Rep. Paul: Legislation seeks to 'restore financial stability' to U.S.

A Republican lawmaker has introduced legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve as a way to "restore financial stability" to the country and re-establish the once-used gold standard.

"Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working-class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy," said Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, in a speech to colleagues on the House floor.

"In addition, most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies. This represents a real, if hidden, tax imposed on the American people," he said last week while introducing the bill.

The Texas Republican went on to blame each economic downturn from the Great Depression of the 1930s to 2001's "dot-com bubble" on Fed policies.

"The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial 'boom' followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts," said Paul.

On the gold standard, however, which the congressman described as "stable currency," U.S. "exporters will no longer be held hostage to an erratic monetary policy.

"Stabilizing the currency will also give Americans new incentives to save as they will no longer have to fear inflation eroding their savings," he added.

"Those members concerned about increasing America's exports or the low rate of savings should be enthusiastic supporters of this legislation," he said.

The libertarian lawmaker also introduced into the congressional record a column by Llewellyn Rockwell, a former WND columnist and current president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian economic policy think tank based in Auburn, Ala.

Entitled, "Why Gold?" Rockwell writes, "The Fed has been inflating the dollar as never before, driving interest rates down to absurdly low levels, even as the federal government has been pushing a mercantile trade policy, and New York City, the hub of the world economy, continues to be threatened by terrorism. ..."

"The government is failing to prevent more successful attacks by not backing down from foreign-policy disasters and by not allowing planes to arm themselves. These are all conditions that make gold particularly attractive," he said.

But, he continued, "there is no stash of gold held by the Fed or the Treasury that backs our currency system. The government owns gold, but not as a monetary asset. It owns it the same way it owns national parks and fighter planes. It's just another asset the government keeps to itself."

Rockwell said the dollar, which has not been based on gold for nearly three decades, is virtually worthless or, at most, whatever the Fed says it's worth.

"The dollar, and all our money, is nothing more and nothing less than what it looks like: a cut piece of linen paper with fancy printing on it," he wrote.

"Though the Federal Reserve policy harms the average American, it benefits those in a position to take advantage of the cycles in monetary policy," he said. "The main beneficiaries are those who receive access to artificially inflated money and/or credit before the inflationary effects of the policy impact the entire economy."

He also said most politicians used the Fed's "inflated currency" to hide the "true costs of the welfare state."

"It is time for Congress to put the interests of the American people ahead of the special interests and their own appetite for big government," said Paul. "Abolishing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy."

Just guessing, but at current prices I doubt there's enough gold in America to cover a minor confidence crisis where less than 1 percent wanted their virtual dollars exchanged.

It doesn't have to be gold. You can use silver or iron or oil or any similar commodity instead. You could even use Coke. :-)

My problem with the Fed is that they have the power to control the amount of cash banks must have on hand. You cannot start up a bank without the Fed telling you how to run it. Not what I call free enterprise!

You are as dense as a rock. It is you who does not understand what he is saying. Re-read what I already wrote you.

And contributed, yes. Here let me give you an example. My brother was thrown in prison a few years back for stealing (from family friends and others) to pay for his drugs and other things he was doing at the time. After he got out (he was under 18 so light sentence), my parents gave him shelter despite the fact that he had already commited heinous crimes. They gave him clothes helped him get a car, etc etc after he got out even though they knew better. My brother then in turn used the car a few weeks later to make many more in home burglaries. My parents were unwittingly contributing to my brother's crimes. Are they guilty of anything? Nope. Much the same is true here. Our military policy of intervention, no matter how good the intentions, will only cause people to hate us and since a lot of them are loco, they will use terrorist attacks to get back at the US. Does that make the US guilty of a crime? Nope, but does it help contribute to the problem? Yes. There-in lies the difference between Ron Paul's view and the way you see Ron Paul's view.

" It doesn't have to be gold. You can use silver or iron or oil or any similar commodity instead. You could even use Coke. :-) "

Hmm… now that completely changes what I last said. ;^)

I may be wrong, but this seems to state that it's Congress rather than the Fed that sets the reserve requirement. It also sounds as if your concerns have shifted a little since your first objection on this thread. I'm not trying to force feed you any of this stuff. I'm no expert, but I don't want to spend a lot of time going round and round on this and parrying your jabs at something that you're no more of an authority on than I.

Interesting analogy, but it sugar coated the meaning behind Ron Paul's position. Having troops protecting our interests around the world isn't the same as propping up an errant kid. Propping up a bad kid is more like just foreign aid. Criticizing our military intervention would be analogous to claiming that we're giving that kid a safe haven above the law. Therefore, Ron Paul's criticism (from what little I've heard of it here) more severe than how you portray it.

FWIW, on another day and at a conceptual level, I think it's a good discussion to have (even though I'm confident that he's wrong.) But if this was stated after 9/11, I think he at least made the mistake of not recognizing that during war one doesn't promote such a fundamental shift in our strategic position that it would be perceived as nothing other than a retreat and lead to a defeat on one or more fronts.

Your statements only make sense if you support the NWO view of 'above the law.' That is, the international body has laws superceding national laws. If you hold that view, then no one can say anything with the world trying to tell us what to do. This is where Ron Paul's beliefs come in that we shouldn't enforce our beliefs on others. It was this countries basic doctrine until WW I, and for many others until Pearl Harbor.

Proposing that we dont police the world has nothing to do with retreating at all. He's been proposing this before and after the fact. The CP, LP and other third parties hold this view. It isn't very popular among Dems and Repubs though, obviously.

" Your statements only make sense if you support the NWO view of 'above the law.'"

If shielding a kid from the law is not a perfect analogy, then just make it shielding a friend from a community where there are no formal laws.

I don't know Ron Paul, but everyone else I know who says that our interventionist foreign policy is partially to blame for 9/11 is pointing to Israel, although they generally avoid naming specific solutions and use phases like "world police". I think that the majority who share that opinion would like to see us do a tactical withdrawal from Israel first, followed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Diego Garcia, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Okinawa, The Baltics, Puerto Rico, Panama, Cuba, Guam etc…

And all they have to support this ideal is the unproven hypothesis that other less benevolent powers will not move into the vacuum that we leave behind, and we won't be faced with an invigorated al-Queda like force controlling the strategic assets of the world that our military had protected. Despite a history of evil growing where wealth is left unprotected and where good men do nothing to protect their allies, they expect the landlords of western civilization to risk all the good that we've promoted and wealth created throughout the world and withdrawal to the homeland to be protected by only a denial of the power of evil and a European style military.

So you say that the LP, CP (and don't forget the GP) are in favor of this? But not the DP and RP (who are dominated by those with assets to lose)? Other than a lack of enlightenment, why could that be?

Without our protection, I don't think it takes great imagination to see states in our own hemisphere fall to revolutionary forces similar to al Queda, African Nationalists or the old Soviet Communists. Not to mention growing sympathies for them in our mosques, ghettos and universities. I don't think that's easier or more honorable to defend against that than maintaining our strength around the world and defending those that either share our values of freedom or have something so strategically valuable to us that we'll pay them off for access.

I generally have some respect for those who see it differently, and want to explore integrated alternatives to our strategic position. But I have little respect for those that promote such a change during war, especially after the Vietnam example where we won every battle except the one at home. People found that careers were easily made out of leveraging dissent in the anguish of war, but at the expense of the people of SE Asia, the US and our soldiers.

No actually Israel would probbaly be the last place we'd recommend pulling out of, even though they are more than capable militarily of defending themselves from their neighboring countries.

Plus its not military support for self defense of a country that is the main issue. It's US offensives. Ex: Yoguslavia.

Btw when will this 'war on terror' end in your opinion that someone could suggest a change.

The RP and DP above all desire power. The LP and CP don't. The RP for years believed this as well until more modern times.

Also the LP and CP do not rule out giving weaponry, information or even letting American volunteers help defend allied countries. What we don't want is the US military all over the globe. And by all over the glove I mean that literally as it is now. If we just said we'll defend Israel, Taiwan and S. Korea I don't think we'd be having this discussion.

You're upset with the Yugoslavia campaign, but you must know that most of those who'll want to align with you when your use phrases like, "military spread all over the world" are gunning for our Middle East Policy.

Of course Israel can currently negate any foreign attack. But without our present level of commitment, that can't be assured in the future when faced with another foreign inspired uprising and economic blackmail by the world to limit their response, making their existence a miserable and tentative one.

I gave a big clue as to what difference I was referring to between the fringe and mainstream parties before you took it to be a drive for power. It's that the fringe parties have less an investment in the results of our foreign policy, and are much more free to propose radical (and I say reckless) solutions that are a magnet for people who's minds are perhaps a little too open.

That's fine, it will always be like that. I just don't respect this one during an honorable war. And as long as there's a significant domestic political threat to our upcoming campaign in Iraq, Iran or whatever. It's at least irresponsible to promote policy changes that weaken our position and align with those behind that threat to further their partisan goals.

To some degree I give libertarians and such a little slack in figuring this out. People don't change their message on a dime. But I don't give them forever, and those who are still promoting US withdrawal from the world a year into the war, like this guy, I consider open game.

I'm not upset with the Yugoslavia campaign, that was an example of US offensive. And libertarians who say military spread all over the world really mean that. Greens, socialists, etc may mean the middle east but not libertarians or constitutionalists. In fact most libertarians I know would suggest pulling out of taiwan and Israel last.

What you fail to realize is that we dont see it as weakening our position, moreover you never can even tell us when this supposed war is over as they've hated us for decades.

In short, your belief is just an opinion, so is mine. Tallhappy however tries to make this the end all of his belief, which is my point is simply silly and foolish.

We all have opinions, but that doesn't make them equal. If the one expressed by the guy who seems to speak for the LP in #153 is an example of Libertarians today, I have no doubt that it's as you say and they're generally unable to recognize how demilitarizing would appear to weaken us.

The LP has to be incredibly disconnected from how the world really works to release those statement. But in their favor, I think much of their platform is a good theoretical framework for the nature of a good government. But they don't understand its application well at all. And not to be condescending but I think if you understood it, you'd be able to figure out about when the war will end why we don't announce a firm date or benchmark instead of perhaps imagining some kind of thoughtlessness, arrogance or malevolent intent by the administration.

And FWIW, I think they've hated us for most of the last 1300 years.

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