The House of Representatives passed Congressman Ron Paul’s H.R.459, also titled the “Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2012.” Contrary to popular claims, the Federal Reserve is, in fact, audited regularly. However, those audits do not release certain documentation to the public. One thing this bill does is to strike a section from US Code covering the Federal Reserve. The specific provisions struck are rules forbidding the disclosure of specific meetings to the public. But what, exactly, are these provisions?
These provisions cover the meetings between the Reserve and Congress. However, these meetings are to be held in secret in another piece of US Code in addition to the code which would be struck, which means this bill has not changed anything. It was redundant code in the first place.
Ok, so, what else does it call for? It calls for a comptroller audit of the Fed to be done by October 1st. But, checking with the Congressional comptroller’s office, the next audit is due on October 1st anyways. No change here.
Lastly, it calls for the audit to include provisions on the home mortgage crisis, for documentation on loans issued by the Federal Reserve for home mortgages. Of course, the Reserve does not issue home mortgage loans, so this is an audit on nothing.
The House just passed a bill which does nothing whatsoever, and is spending your money to do it.
For those who wish to read the previous audits of the Federal Reserve, their annual audits are found on this page. In addition, the detailed audit on the TARP program is found here.
The Reserve makes a handy enemy for the Republicans in congress. This continuing pandering, at the expense of taxpayer dollars, is getting out of hand. The cost of the vote today comes to almost $3.5 million. And yet, the Republicans continue to block the Presidents jobs bill.
