Liberty MavenRon Paul Wants to End the Fed
May 19th, 2009 12:44 pm | by Mike Miller | Published in Banking, Big Government, Constitution, Federal Reserve, Free Market, Liberty, Money, Politics, Ron Paul, congress | 0
Ron Paul says he wants to abolish Federal Reserve System. Well, the title of his latest Texas Straight Talk column, “Audit the Fed, Then End It!” mentions it, even if the body of his article doesn’t really. But Dr. Paul has mentioned it a number of times throughout his career. For example:
…I also want to abolish the Federal Reserve…. The value of our dollar and the level of our interest rates are not supposed to be manipulated by a few members of the power elite meeting secretly in a marble palace….Without the Federal Reserve, our money could not be inflated at the behest of big government or big banks. Your income and savings would not lose their value.
– Ron Paul, 2002
He is also putting his weight behind Senate Bill 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, which is quite similar to his own HR1207, which has 165 cosponsors as of this writing.
Read Ron Paul’s weekly article, in which he addresses the bill’s detractors:
I have been very pleased with the progress of my legislation, HR 1207, which calls for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve and removes many significant barriers towards transparency of our monetary system. This bill now has nearly 170 cosponsors, with support from both Republicans and Democrats. Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced a companion bill in the Senate S 604, which will hopefully begin to gain momentum as well. I am very encouraged to see so many of my colleagues in Congress stand with me for greater transparency in government.
Some have begun to push back against this bill, and I am very happy to address their concerns.
The main argument seems to be that Congressional oversight over the Fed is government interference in the free market. This argument shows a misunderstanding of what a free market really is. Fundamentally, you cannot defend the Federal Reserve and the free market at the same time. The Fed negates the very foundation of a free market by artificially manipulating the price and supply of money – the lifeblood of the economy. In a free market, interest rates, like the price of any other consumer good, are decentralized and set by the market. The only legitimate, Constitutional role of government in monetary policy is to protect the integrity of the monetary unit and defend against counterfeiters. [Continue]
