Agree on the “agree to disagree” part.

You say, “The Fed is a creature of Congress.”

Well, if that’s your position, why shouldn’t Congress audit the Fed?

When Congress does audit the Fed, we’ll probably all agree then that it does need to be abolished.

It would appear that most of the House of Representatives agrees with Ron Paul that the Fed needs to be audited. They see an audit as being an accountabilty measure that will provide some badly needed transparency when there seems to be very little at this point in time.

Maybe you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this one John.

Am not opposed to transparency and accountability. But Ron Paul’s oft-stated goal is to disband the Federal Reserve. So, I see this legislation in that context — i.e., start by politicizing the Fed in the guise of auditing it. Wound it, then kill it. The Fed is a creature of Congress. So, Congress clearly has the power to to change how it interacts with the Fed, or even to completely abolish the Fed and its central banking and monetary policy functions. Not a wise move, in my opinion; but they could do it. However, I doubt the Federal Reserve Act or the operation of the Fed pursuant to that act constitutes an unlawful delegation in violation of the Article I language you quoted. However, one is always free to test that notion through the courts, as occured in the case of the line item veto.

John W.

The companion bill in the Senate (S.604) has been picking-up support, however, nothing like H.R.1207. Sometimes bills progress slower in the Senate as far as co-sponsorship goes because Senators are more likely to govern as trustees, as opposed to delegates. Plus, Senator Bernie Sanders was not pushing his bill in the Senate up until H.R.1207 reached 200 + co-sponsors. On July 15th the Senate bill picked-up five more co-sponsors, and you’ll be surprised two-weeks from now. Remember that the Senate only needs a simple majority (51).

Check out the videos John W.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpbW64vRrMc&feature=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ&feature=channel

The United States Constitution, gives the United States Congress the authority to coin Money and regulate the value thereof and does not give Congress the authority to delegate control over monetary policy to a central bank.

Have to confess, I hadn’t heard of this one. After looking it up, I notice it has significantly less co-sponsor support in the Senate — 13 according to what I saw. I’m surprised that many people on both sides of the aisle in the House agreed to co-sponsor a Ron Paul bill. Not something I would sign onto were I in Congress. Looks like a slippery slope to politicizing the Fed, which I’m totally against. Usually, when there are that many co-sponsors, it means you have a bunch of people on record as being in favor of something with populist appeal, but far fewer people with any intention of actually voting for it. I earnestly hope that’s the case here, and I give McNerney a high five for not playing the game.