Excerpt from Ron Paul’s 4/22/2009 appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch:
Ron Paul: After we came back yesterday from our 2-week break, I think have 15 new people signed on and somebody came up to me and says, “I signed on your bill this morning because I went to my town hall meetings, I went four of them and in every meeting people were there and say, “It’s time that we have transparency of the Fed.’”
But I call them the Fourth Branch of government. Some people don’t think of them as part of the government because they’re so secretive. But we created it, we can end it, we take no responsibility to supervise it, and look at what they’re doing. We spend hundreds of billions, but the Fed deals in trillions, and they don’t have any responsibility to tell us about it. So there’s a lot of power there and it deserves looking at.
And I think I have to say Barney Frank has been sympathetic with this. He’s for transparency. He’s not for hard money and the type of monetary policy I’m talking about. He believes that we should have more transparency of the Fed, so whether this bill gets passed or something very similar, the mood in the country is such that not only do they want us to be better in handling the appropriated fund and knowing where these TARP funds went, the American people have awakened to this whole idea of what the Federal Reserve does behind the scenes.
So I’m delighted. I’ve been pushing this monetary issue for more than 30 years believing it was THE significant economic issue of our time, and I think people are starting to realize this and we’re going to keep hearing about it and there’s a good chance that it will eventually make it to the floor.
Excerpt from Ron Paul’s 3/5/2009 appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch:
Judge Napolitano: Before we switch gears, Congressman Paul, how did Ben Bernanke react to the legislation that you introduced calling for an audit of the Fed. Did he give you a call on the phone?
Ron Paul: Oh yes, he called me, wanted to congratulate me and he wanted to support my bill. You know, interestingly, just recently, I cannot name his name but I was talking to a former member of the Federal Reserve board and told him about the bill and he was friendly enough.
I said, “What do you think of that?” He said, “I think it’s not a very good idea”. And I said, “Do the people at the Federal Reserve ever talk about, are concerned about the dollar”. I said, you know, I’m always talking about the dollar and what this is going to do to the dollar. And I said, “Do they know that all this debt and inflation could hurt the dollar?” He says, “Yes, they do.” He confirmed it. He said, “They absolutely do.” He says, “But they can’t answer your questions in public because it would cause panic.”
Judge Napolitano: This administration came to power and we all knew the words that they used, “hope” and “change”. But one of the words that they really used was “transparency”. I would think the President himself should be in favor of transparency at the Fed if he wants to be ideologically consistent. What are they afraid we will find out, Congressman Paul?
Ron Paul: Well, what they’re going to find out is, that’s the first step. Once we get the audit bill passed and we can reveal what they are doing, I think the next step is to end the Fed. That’s why they don’t want that.
You know, we had some very good comments made by our Senator Bernie Sanders yesterday from Vermont. I talked with him this morning and we’re going to be talking a lot about the need for having transparency.
And I think the mood is right. The mood is right both with the Democrats and the Republicans, because they don’t know exactly what is going on but they know the American people are sick and tired of just throwing money out there, whether it’s to the Treasury and nobody knows where it goes, whether they send it to Iraq and nobody knows where the bundles of money go, or whether the Federal Reserve can create 2 trillion dollars, and they don’t even have to tell us.
As a government all onto itself, it’s bigger than the whole U.S. Congress. They create trillions in a day, you know, in a short period of time, and in the Congress we do talk a little bit when we pass 400 million or 800 million. But the Fed is a much bigger problem.
Excerpt from Ron Paul’s 3/10/2009 interview with Alex Jones:
Alex Jones: Every few weeks they come before the banking committee and you bring up the fact that what they are doing is destroying us. What do we need to do to bring the private Federal Reserve under control?
Ron Paul: Well, there has to be an uprising by the people. There has to be enough people who will demand that their Congressmen respond, and that is building. You know, a year or two ago nobody in Washington even thought about the Federal Reserve. Today there is a lot more thinking going on and a lot more support for our position. So it is growing. And yet, we’re not on the verge of changing it. I have the bill to get rid of the Federal Reserve, that’s the major step and the ultimate step and they’ll probably self-destruct before we actually pass legislation.
But the bill that is more important in the short run is the auditing bill, the 1207 bill, because that means they have to start answering our questions. Today they are protected. They are in total secrecy and they are protected by the law. If 1207 is passed we have an audit and they have to answer the questions. And I figure if we ever get that far and get the exposure and get the transparency that we need, then people will wake up and realize, ‘why do we have them at all?’
Alex Jones: Senator Sanders grilled them, as you know, last week saying that he is supporting 1207 or a version in the Senate because, Bernanke, the private Fed chief just said, “I’m not going to tell you where the money, buddy.” I mean, that’s amazing to see our elected Congress, the most powerful branch of the government according to our founders, being told to kiss off.
Ron Paul: Right, and I know Sanders real well. He was on the banking committee with me before he went into the Senate, and I called him after that, and I believe he has now introduced my version of the transparency bill and I’ve introduced his version. So both bills exist. Mine is a little bit more conclusive, in that it removes the total authority for them to not answer questions. His is specifically designed to answer certain questions and reveal where certain trillion dollars went. They are very similar, but somewhat different in nature, so we both support each other’s bill and they’ve been introduced in both chambers.
Alex Jones: Well, public support for this and the majority of the Congress itself are saying they are angry, they don’t know where the money is and Bloomberg sued to find out and he’s been told No on their foyer. If this gets media attention I can see now way that Congress wouldn’t vote for a proper audit of the private Federal Reserve.
Ron Paul: They’re going to, if we can get it that far. It’s a good issue, like so many of our issues, we bring different many factions together, liberals and conservatives, under the constitution. Because, if you’re a good honest liberal like Bernie Sanders, he is an honest person but is very, very liberal. He calls himself a socialist, but he agrees on the transparency issue.
So this whole idea that we expose them to bring populists, libertarians, constitutionals, liberals, socialist all together and think, “If we can’t do this, what’s left of representative government? There’s nothing left.” So it’s a good unifier, I think it’s a great issue.
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