GOPers To Push Fed Audit
House GOPers will make a push to audit the Federal Reserve in a last-ditch effort to stop financial regulatory reform legislation, leaning on a popular proposal from Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) to make their case.
The GOP will offer the Fed audit as a motion to recommit, the minority's last chance to alter a bill before final passage. A motion to recommit is subject only to an up-or-down vote, not to debate or amendments.
The regulatory reform measure does have an audit provision in the conference report, but it is limited to loans made by the Fed during the height of the economic crisis. Paul's bill would allow a total examination of the Fed's books.
Paul's legislation has 320 co-sponsors, including Dems as diverse as Reps. Jason Altmire (D-PA), a centrist, and Steve Cohen (D-TN), a liberal.
But it's unlikely to pass as a motion to recommit, which would send the conference committee back to the drawing board for a third time. House and Senate Dems reached agreement Tuesday night on a revamped package after Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), 2 key GOPers who voted for the Senate version, said they could not vote for the first conference report. Negotiators ended up dropping a proposed $18B bank tax to help pay for the bill.
The idea to use the bill as a motion to recommit stemmed from America Speaking Out, the new GOP organization aimed at soliciting ideas from the public in hopes of building a platform for the Nov. midterms. Paul himself will post a video on the site later today talking about the legislation and seeking input from visitors. Already, a dozen of the most popular ideas on America Speaking Out's website urge GOPers to adopt Paul's proposal.
It's the second idea GOPers have borrowed from the website. Earlier this month, they used legislation from Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) that would have repealed the individual mandate contained in health care legislation. That motion failed on a party-line vote.
The motion to recommit is one of the few ways a minority party can influence floor action. GOPers are using the technique because any legislation influenced by America Speaking Out has little chance of ever advancing through committee to the floor.
Motions to recommit occasionally do pass, but GOPers of late have used the technique as more of a way to embarrass Dems. Any motion to recommit on a conference report, the stage at which financial regulatory reform legislation finds itself, would force the conference committee to reconvene for a third time.
America Speaking Out, a group spearheaded by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), is aimed at building a series of GOP proposals the party might eventually use as the basis for a midterm election platform. The group is technically run out of House Min. Leader John Boehner's official office, meaning it cannot share data with the GOP's campaign wing.
The group had a checkered roll-out; Dems made fun of GOPers for some of the more outlandish early suggestions, and liberals added their own calls for universal health care and other decidedly non-GOP ideas. But the GOP has been under pressure to offer some way forward, and members are sensitive about Dem charges they are the "party of No." America Speaking Out has given the GOP an idea factory to point to, even if some of the early concepts were lemons.
I seriously doubt the powers that be will let any ramifications come of this. But I wonder what will be the breaking point?
Our government has become what our forefathers ran from.
Audit the Fed or get rid of it altogether. Also rid us of any bureaucracy that bogs down important processes.
I believe many things should happen but unfortunately won't, because they would benefit the people of this nation, and our government certainly doesn't want that to happen. here is my simple list.
1.Have a complete audit of the Federal Reserve, not by the GAO tho, but by an Independent Private Company of Auditors and Accountants who are beholding to nobody, and can't be influienced by anybody.
2. Make it a Federal Law that all Judges no matter what their capacity is that during a criminal trial the Judge must inform the Jury about all 3 options in determining the fate of a defendant.
Option 1, guilty according to the evidence.
Option 2, innocent according to the evidence.
Option 3, innocent of all charges using Jury Nullification and Nullifying the law itself.
I believe all Judges should be ordered by law to inform the Jury of all of their legal options, and if a Judge refuses or otherwise fails to infom the Jury of all of their options then the Judge him/herself should face Automatic Disbarment,Immediate arrest by the Officer of the Court, a $5000.00 fine, and at least 1 year in prison for failure to fully execute their duties. I also believe that Judges should not have the authority to determine what evidence is or is not able to be heard in court or have the authority to find anybody in Contempt of Court. These Courts belong to the people not to the Judges. Because the people of this nation pay to have them lighted warmed and cooled through taxation and if anything I believe the citizens of this nation should be able to find the Judges in contempt of Court if they act out of line or fail to perform their full duties.