1999 Ron Paul 76:1 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, I move to
strike the requisite number of words.
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission
to revise and extend his remarks.)
1999 Ron Paul 76:2 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in
support of this amendment, and I
thank the gentleman from Vermont
(Mr. SANDERS) for bringing this amendment
to the floor.
1999 Ron Paul 76:3 I would like to clarify one thing
about the original intent of the Exchange
Stabilization Fund. It was
never meant to be used to support foreign
currencies. It should not be so casually
accepted that that is the proper
function of the Exchange Stabilization
Fund.
1999 Ron Paul 76:4 The Exchange Stabilization Fund
was set up, I think in error; but it was
set up for the purpose of stabilizing the
dollar in the Depression. How did that
come about? Well, it started with an
Executive order. It started with an Executive
order to take gold forcefully
from the people. And then our President
then revalued gold from $20 an
ounce to $35 an ounce, and there was a
profit and they took this profit and
used some of those profits to start the
Exchange Stabilization Fund. They set
it up with $200 million. It does not
seem like a whole lot of money today.
How did it come about over these
many years that this fund has been allowed
to exist without supervision of
this Congress, and now has reached to
the size of $34 billion and we give it no
oversight? It is supposed to send reports
to us, very superficial reports to
the Congress. We don’t know how they
got $34 billion. They earned interest on
some of the loans, and all the loans are
paid back because the countries who
get the loans borrow more money.
1999 Ron Paul 76:5 Mr. Chairman, the Mexico bailout did
not solve the Mexico problem. It is ongoing.
The peso is in trouble again.
They are in more debt than before. We
only encourage the financial bubble
around the world. This is a dangerous
notion that we can take something
that was set up to stabilize the dollar,
and now we are pretending we can stabilize
all the currencies in the world
and use it as foreign aid to boot without
the congressional approval. There
is something seriously flawed with
this.
1999 Ron Paul 76:6 It has also been suggested by many
who know a lot more about the details
of the Exchange Stabilization Fund
than I do, and it has been suggested
that possibly, quite possibly, what happens
is Treasury deals in currencies all
the time and there are profits to be
made. And when there is a profit, it
goes into the Exchange Stabilization
Fund. When there is a loss. It is sent
over to the Treasury and then recorded
as a loss.
1999 Ron Paul 76:7 This is a magnificent thing, but in a
free society, in a democracy, in a republic
where we are supposed to have
the rule of law, we are not supposed to
have a slush fund that is run by our
Treasury without supervision to be
doing things that was never intended.
This is a serious problem. And I think
economically it is serious because it is
contributing to the bubble. It is contributing
to a financial bubble.
1999 Ron Paul 76:8 So, yes, we tide Mexico over for a
year or two, but what are we going to
say next year when there is another
peso crisis? Are we going to close our
eyes and say we will do whatever we
want, it is a major crisis? Our obligation
here in the Congress is to have a
sound dollar, not to dilute the value of
the dollar without our permission and
for our President and our Treasury Department
and the IMF and the World
Bank and the internationalists to destroy
the value of the dollar. That is
not permissible under the rule of law,
and yet we have casually permitted
this to happen and we do not even ask
the serious questions.
1999 Ron Paul 76:9 We should make it certain that all
loans, all use of that is reviewed by the
Congress. This is a very, very modest
request by the gentleman from
Vermont. It should be absolutely approved.
But then some day we ought to
give a serious study about how we as a
Congress allow these kind of things to
happen without our supervision.
1999 Ron Paul 76:10 What is the purpose of having a Congress?
What is the purpose of the Constitution
if we have an obligation to
guarantee the value of the dollar and if
we permit somebody not under our control
to do whatever they want to the
dollar under the pretense that we are
going to protect the value of all the
currencies of Asia?
1999 Ron Paul 76:11 Mr. Chairman, are we going to protect
the Euro now? The Euro is getting
pretty weak. I guess we are going to
bail out the Euro. When it drops down
under a dollar, we will expect the Exchange
Stabilization Fund to come and
bail out the Euro. This has to be
looked at. This is the first very modest,
very minimal step that we are
making tonight. It should be overwhelmingly
supported.
1999 Ron Paul 76:12 It is up to us to assume our responsibility
to protect the dollar, have the
rule of law, make sure that we assume
the responsibilities that have been delegated
to us and not close our eyes and
let this slush fund of $34 billion that
has existed for now these many decades
and have allowed the Treasury Department
to run it without us caring. So I
plead with my colleagues, support the
amendment.
Note:
1999 Ron Paul 76:2
I thank the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. SANDERS) for bringing this amendment to the floor. Here, Ron Paul thanks The Honorable Bernard V. Sanders.
1999 Ron Paul 76:4
It started with an Executive order to take gold forcefully from the people. And then our President then revalued gold from $20 an ounce to $35 an ounce, Actually, gold was revalued
from $20.67 per ounce. For more on the gold confiscation, see http://Goldtheft.com.
1999 Ron Paul 76:7
that was never intended probably should be that were never intended.
