Sen. Rand Paul has reintroduced his populist legislation to audit the Federal Reserve, the Kentucky Republican announced Tuesday morning.
Paul’s bill has 30 cosponsors, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“A complete and thorough audit of the Fed will finally allow the American people to know exactly how their money is being spent by Washington,” Paul said in a statement announcing the legislation Tuesday. “The Fed’s currently operates under a cloak of secrecy and it has gone on for too long. The American people have a right to know what the Federal Reserve is doing with our nation’s money supply.”
Paul has made criticism of the central bank and its control of the money supply a major part of his libertarian platform since before he was elected to the Senate in 2010, following in the footsteps of his father, Ron Paul. The elder Paul, a former U.S. Representative from Texas and the author of the book End the Fed, called for shutting down the Federal Reserve throughout his campaigns for the presidency.
Rand Paul’s bill would subject all of the Fed’s monetary policy decisions to an audit from the Government Accountability Office.
Under current law, the Fed’s finances are audited by an outside accounting firm retained by its inspector general. The GAO also audits many of its functions.
Paul’s bill would require the GAO to examine the Fed’s monetary policy deliberations and report on them to the Congress. Currently, the Fed’s monetary policy committee releases the minutes from its meetings on a three-week delay, and then releases transcripts of those meetings after five years.
Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen and other central bankers have opposed legislation like Paul’s, arguing that allowing Congress to audit short-term monetary policy decisions would undermine the bank’s ability to set policy without consideration of politics.
Although legislation to audit the Fed is broadly popular, it is not likely to pass amid opposition from the Fed and the administration.
In past years, Paul has sought to have his legislation attached to other votes, such as approval of nominees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, although those efforts have failed.
The bill unveiled Tuesday has one Democratic cosponsor: Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.
