Federal Reserve Rejects Audit

Michele Bachmann | September 21, 2009 5:54 PM

Recently, efforts to audit the Federal Reserve have been gathering steam on both sides of the political aisle, as both Republicans and Democrats are expressing their frustrations with the nearly complete lack of transparency and accountability during an unprecedented time of activity from the Fed. Congressman Ron Paul has been calling for this for years, and his Federal Reserve Transparency Act, of which I'm a cosponsor, is expected to be examined during a full committee hearing of the Financial Services Committee this Friday.

Coincidentally, that same night, Dr. Paul is holding a student town hall at the University of Minnesota to discuss issues like this one. And, I’m honored to have the opportunity to speak at it as well. Congress is spending away these students’ future, and they need to be a part of this dialogue.

As a precursor to that hearing and that town hall, we get word today that the Federal Reserve has "rejected a request by Treasury Secretary Geithner for a public review of the central bank’s structure and governance."

Our government's spending and printing money like it’s being used for a board game, and we're bailing out Wall Street and Detroit to the tune of billions of dollars, the least the Federal Reserve can do is open up their doors a crack so taxpayers can take a peek at what they're doing with our money.

As it stands now, the Federal Reserve has very little, if any, accountability to the taxpayer. In the wake of Enron, Congress required corporate America to open its books to their shareholders, yet the Federal Reserve keeps the taxpayers in the dark. They need to be held to the same standard. It's simply common sense.