Frustration with the Fed Beckons Bipartisan Solution
President Trump is upset with the…let’s call them, ‘happenings’ at the Fed. While his opinions on interest rates have changed over the past two years, his opinion of their infamous lack of oversight has remained constant since he endorsed the idea on his 2016 campaign.
The Fed’s continued attempts to wrestle the market into the “perfect place” has caused the desire for accountability and transparency to reach an all-time high. Congress is now asking the right question: If this ‘agency’ is going to exist, should it be permitted to operate under such scarce oversight that they consider themselves an independent entity?
Thankfully for President Trump, a growing bipartisan body of concerned Congress members led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have reintroduced a common-sense legislative solution to the Fed problem. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, H.R. 24, would finally shine a light on the rogue agency.
“We need to audit the Fed. It’s a creature of the swamp,” Rep. Massie said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News. “It’s controlling the economy, and it’s still behind the veil, and people are demanding more transparency in their government in the Internet age—and we should know what our government is doing.”
The Federal Reserve Transparency Act simply requires the Comptroller General, who is the director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve within 12 months of the bill’s enactment. The Federal Reserve would be required to give information currently excluded from existing audits, as defined in 31 U.S.C. 714(b), such as “transactions for or with a foreign central bank, government of a foreign country, or nonprivate international financing organization” and “transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee.” The report of the findings of the audit would be available within 90 days of the completion of the audit.
The lack of oversight is the primary reason for the ongoing, and sometimes literal, fight between the Fed and the executive branch. Just think what a bit of transparency could do to improve that rocky relationship. Americans can surely agree that a federally funded agency with a presidentially appointed chair should have to answer to somebody, right?
“Now is the time because I believe the president would sign an Audit the Fed bill. This bill has passed through the House with a veto-proof majority. This last Congress it passed out of committee, but the Speaker [Paul Ryan] did not pick it up,” said Rep. Massie. “I believe if we can get it on the floor in the House and to the Senate, it would pass with a large majority."
Reining in the Fed is a widely supported on both sides of the aisle. A presidential endorsement of this widely supported bipartisan bill could lead to another big bipartisan win for the administration. Massie knows this stating “We got a divided Congress, we’ve got a House that finds it hard to agree with the White House, why not bring up something like Audit the Fed on which there’s a bipartisan agreement?”
Rep. Massie is exactly right. Many would like to see Congress reassume their Constitutional duties of coining and, valuing money and return letting the market determine interest rates, but we have to start somewhere. Hopefully this bill will act as a first step toward sound money and responsible monetary policy. Maybe the U.S. can even move towards embracing and allowing the free-flow of cryptocurrency.
Massie closed with asking, "How on earth can you know the Fed is independent of Wall Street, banks, and the Treasury if they employ people from those backgrounds?” There’s only one way to truthfully answer that question: Audit The Fed.
