US Person cannot be held responsible for the two-bit tampering with good ideas that passes for legislating in Congress. He urged his readers to support auditing the Federal Reserve. If you read his posts on the issue {"audit fed"}, you know he had in mind a periodic, if not an annual, examination of the books by Congress. What we got after the lobbying was done, is a one time audit by GAO for the period of the financial crisis beginning in December 2007. Senator Sanders caved on the audit's scope apparently in order to get any audit passed in the face of the administration/banking lobby's opposition to oversight of the mysterious temple of finance. They were particularly afraid that the inner sanctum of the Open Market Committee where interest rate policies are made would be violated by the public's profane glare. Voodoo economics indeed! At least there is an audit provision in the Senate's finance reform package to be sent to reconciliation with the House proposals.
{5.5.10}Obama has turned out to be mostly a virtual reformer. The latest deviation from his rhetoric: the administration is attempting to stop the Federal Reserve audit proposal{"audit fed"}, a bill which has over 300 co-sponsors in the House. A version of auditing the Fed proposal passed the Senate by 95-1. So how is it Forty-four, who pledged to bring more transparency* to government, is objecting to bringing much needed transparency to the operations of America's most powerful chartered bank? Because secrecy allows an administration to favor certain banks over others, as the Fed did during the 2008 financial crisis. It provided $2 trillion dollars to selected financial institutions at virtually no interest. The Federal Reserve has repeatedly rejected legislators' requests to name loan terms or recipients of the public money, and is fighting two FOIA suits in federal courts that ordered it to divulge the information. Former Chairman Greenspan also used the bank's secrecy cloak to keep policy dissent within the Open Market Committee away from public notice. A Federal Reserve bank president expressed his concern about rampant real estate speculation in Florida being influenced by "our very accommodative [interest rate] policy". Jack Guynn's March 2004 remarks were not released by the Fed until now. Independent socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is shepherding the audit amendment through the Senate Banking Committee chaired by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT). Senator Sanders has picked up new supporters, but the amendment will probably have to scale the 60 vote filibuster to reach the Senate floor. Do you want the grip of the plutocrats broken, and control of America returned to the people's elected representatives? Call your Senators and ask them to support auditing the Federal Reserve. After all, it's your money.
*page 3, The Blueprint for Change, Barack Obama's Plan for America, Obama For America Campaign Committee