HR1207, "Audit the FED" Bill gutted says Ron Paul

[dc dalton]

Well it's not like I had much hope of this bill getting through committee without getting gutted but I had had SOME hope:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=atc2o1ijLRno

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

“There’s nothing left, it’s been gutted,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.”

The Fed, led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, has come under greater congressional scrutiny while attempting to end the financial crisis by bailing out financial firms and more than doubling its balance sheet to $2.16 trillion in the past year. The central bank is also buying $1.25 trillion of securities tied to home loans.

Paul, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has eliminated “just about everything” while preparing the legislation for formal consideration. Watt is chairman of the panel’s domestic monetary policy and technology subcommittee.

Keith Kelly, a spokesman for Watt, declined to comment and said Watt wasn’t immediately available for an interview. Watt’s district includes Charlotte, headquarters of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender.

Original Language

Paul said he intends to introduce an amendment to the bill when it comes to the House floor for a vote restoring the legislation’s original language.

Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts and chairman of the committee, said in interview that he intends to ensure legislation would provide a time lag between FOMC actions and the reporting of them.

Such a provision would “lessen the market impact,” he said on Oct. 20. “The importance is to see that there are no abuses and to judge what they did.”

The legislation will probably be included in a broader Democratic package of financial-regulation changes in the House, Frank said.

And yes the news is a bit late but I'm just catching up.

What the '800 pound gorilla' is in this story, that Bloomberg doesn't mention is who Mel Watt is, where he is from and who his major campaign contributers are:

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/11.09/gutted.html

In what can only be a cosmic coincidence, we note that Mel Watt is a North Carolina representative. Specifically, he represents District 12... which just so happens to be the HQ for Bank of America, the biggest beneficiary of opaque Federal Reserve lending practices. Hey just for kicks, lets look at the top donors for Watt's 2008 re-election, as listed on his own Web site:

1 Wachovia Corp.
2 American Bankers Assn.
3 Bank of America
4 American Express

SO as usual the banks have flexed their political might and protected 'their master' ... simply amazing

[FormerUser123]

Typical...

This disgusts me.

[jerkin]

Already being discussed here: http://forum.pafoa.org/national-11/7...paul-says.html

[ehidle]

The entire House is up for re-election next year. Time to get the brooms out and sweep them out.

Utter BS. The People have a right to know what their government is doing.

[dc dalton]

Already being discussed here: http://forum.pafoa.org/national-11/7...paul-says.html

Whoops, well I did say I was just getting caught up

[jerkin]

Ehh, wasn't much of a discussion anyways, lol.

[dc dalton]

Ehh, wasn't much of a discussion anyways, lol.

And you know in a lot of ways that's sad ... here we have one of the biggest rip offs of the American people EVER, an absolute violation of everything this country was supposed to be and most people just say "oh well"

[ajax]

And you know in a lot of ways that's sad ... here we have one of the biggest rip offs of the American people EVER, an absolute violation of everything this country was supposed to be and most people just say "oh well"

Ripoff is perhaps an understatement, but it is indeed a shame the mentality is "oh well." I get that a lot from family, meanwhile I'm screaming bloody murder. The writing is on the wall; constant dollar devaluation, rising cpi, bailouts to BANKS... Ever since it was created, the fed has done the complete opposite of what it was 'intended' to do.

Wrote my rep regarding support for reinstating the original language of the bill, but that's about it.

[dc dalton]

Ripoff is perhaps an understatement, but it is indeed a shame the mentality is "oh well." I get that a lot from family, meanwhile I'm screaming bloody murder. The writing is on the wall; constant dollar devaluation, rising cpi, bailouts to BANKS... Ever since it was created, the fed has done the complete opposite of what it was 'intended' to do.

Wrote my rep regarding support for reinstating the original language of the bill, but that's about it.

Yeah I get about the exact same response from Tootie's family, luckily my sister gets it and this summer I was actually able to get my mother interested enough in what I was saying for her to start doing some research. Amazing since for about 49 years she basically told me I hadn't clue one ... guess when I told her to get ALL her money out of the market (which she didn't do) and three weeks later it crashed she changed her mind about what I did and didn't know a little bit.

Then again explaining derivatives to her in depth, only to be backed up by 4 major news stories on them within a month of me telling her about them didn't hurt either.

[Elmar]

It's back to full strength thanks to an amendment propose on the 19th that was passed that undid all the damage of the previous amendment. We still have fairly strong support in the committee as I believe it passed 30 some to twenty some.

lets get it for vote on the House Floor!