Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Speaker, at this
time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. PAUL), the
ranking member of the Domestic Monetary
Policy Committee.
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission
to revise and extend his remarks.)
2010 Ron Paul 36:1
Mr. PAUL.
I thank the gentleman
from Alabama for yielding.
2010 Ron Paul 36:2
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to
this piece of legislation. Iím afraid it is
not going to do much to solve our problems.
I know itís very well intended,
and itís believed that more regulations
will solve the problems; but, quite
frankly, the problems that weíre facing
come from a deeply flawed monetary
system.
2010 Ron Paul 36:3
I had made an attempt to emphasize
this point by talking about a full audit
of the Federal Reserve, and fortunately
this House was strongly in support of
this piece of legislation. There are 320
cosponsors of this bill. It passed rather
easily on the Financial Services Committee,
and then it was put into the
House version of this reform package.
But it was removed in conference.
2010 Ron Paul 36:4
Although there is some attention
given to getting more information
from the Fed, it truly doesnít serve as
a full audit. If we donít eventually address
the Federal Reserve in depth, we
will never fully understand how financial
bubbles are formed and why more
regulations tend to fail. If the financial
markets were pleased with what weíre
doing here today and the discussion of
the last several weeks, they wouldnít
be reeling as they are at this very moment.
2010 Ron Paul 36:5
So I would say that we should be very
cautious in expanding the role of the
regulatory agencies, which does not
solve the problem. At the same time,
giving more power to the Federal Reserve
doesnít make much sense if the
theory is right that the Federal Reserve
is the source of much of our problems.
2010 Ron Paul 36:6
Now, some objected to the transparency
bill of the Federal Reserve and
said that that was too much information,
that the Federal Reserve had to
be totally independent. The Federal
Reserve Transparency Act doesnít do
anything about removing transparency.
It doesnít change monetary
policy. It just says that the American
people and the Congress have a right to
know what they do.
2010 Ron Paul 36:7
After the crisis hit, the Federal Reserve
injected $1.7 trillion and guaranteed
many more trillions of dollars,
and it was very hard to get any information
whatsoever. So an ongoing
audit to find out exactly what they do
and why they do it, I think, would be a
first step to finding out the relationship
of the Federal Reserve system to
the banking system and the financial
community.
2010 Ron Paul 36:8
Transparency is something the
American people have been asking for
and they want. They didnít like the
lack of transparency with the TARP
funds; and once the American people
found out about what goes on at the
Fed, they want transparency of the
Fed.
2010 Ron Paul 36:9
So fortunately today we will have a
chance to vote on this because it will
be in the recommittal motion, and it
will give us a chance to put the language
back in, the H.R. 1207, the Federal
Reserve Transparency Act, a
chance to audit the Fed. So this will be
a perfect opportunity to emphasize the
importance of the Fed and to say that
we do need a full audit.
