Less than one year ago protests were held on the 98h anniversary of the creation of the Federal Reserve at or near each of the 39 Federal Reserve Banks with demands to “End The Fed!” Since then, a bill to audit the Fed has gained close to 300 co-sponsors in the House and the companion bill in the Senate has 30. DownsizeDC has given five possible outcomes to an audit of the Federal Reserve System:
“Outcome #1: The audit is ignored.
The FED is a complex operation, and the audit will reflect that. There may be no soundbites that the media and the public can understand. The audit report may simply be ignored, and then forgotten.
Outcome #2: The FED gets a passing grade.
We can’t guarantee that the audit will tell us what we want, or that the auditors will even focus on the things we think are important. The audit will most likely be conducted by establishment insiders, not by people like us. The result could be the exact opposite of what we expect.
Outcome #3: The audit reports bad things, but nothing is done about it.
We think this is the most likely result. In the 1980s the Grace Commission found massive examples of government waste and fraud, but nothing was ever done about it. Instead, the problem just got worse. People may pay attention to the audit, just as they did the Grace Commission, but that doesn’t mean real change will happen.
Outcome #4: The auditors report big problems, and Congress decides to fix the FED.
This may sound like the result we want, but it could be the worst outcome. We want to end the FED, not have Congress micro-manage it.
Imagine what would happen if money creation was a partisan political power. Imagine the consequences if a single branch of government, Congress, could both spend money, and create it.
Have you ever watched a Financial Services Committee hearings on C-Span? It’s frightening. I hate the FED, but Lord, please, don’t let these people control our money supply!
Outcome #5: The auditors report horrifying things, and Congress decides to close the FED.”
This is what we want and I see an audit as a stepping stone to a complete shut-down of the Federal Reserve.
We’ve come a long way in one year, but we still have a long way to go before the Fed is shut down. While some recent polls show nearly ¾ of Americans support and audit of the Federal Reserve, no numbers are available on a complete end to the Federal Reserve System. We still need to educate people to the fact that the Federal Reserve System is nothing more than a group of private banks that has been given an open contract to print and control the nations currency. We need to educate people about what money really is – something we’ve been lacking in the USA for the most part since 1933, when the paper currency was no longer redeemable for gold. Money isn’t a worthless piece of paper; currency can be – thanks to Legal Tender laws and the monopoly held by the Federal Reserve. We need honest money and competitive currency. We need to “End the Fed!”