Dennis Kucinich on the House floor earlier today. Runs 1 minute.
Transcript
The Fed essentially supplants the Constitutional mandate in Article 1, Section 8, that belongs to the Congress of the United States. Let's look at some recent history here. 2008: subprime meltdown, collateralized debt obligation, go back for mortgage-backed securities, neighborhoods in Cleveland melting down, people losing their homes. The Fed looked the other way and we're saying, "oh, don't go into the Fed, it would be political." Yes, it's political. We have unemployment because of politics. We have people losing their homes because of politics. We have banks getting uncalculated amounts of money from the Federal Reserve and we don't even know about it. Meanwhile people can't get a loan to keep their home or keep their business. Audit the Fed? You bet we should audit the Fed. We have to have accountability. It's time that Congress stood for its Constitutional role: Article 1, Section 8, the power to coin or create money. It's time we stood up for America's 99%. It's time that we stood up to the Federal Reserve that right now acts like it's some kind of high exalted priesthood, unaccountable in a democracy.
Let's change that by voting for the Paul Bill.
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More from Kucinich on H.R. 459 (also from today)...
This is the better clip...
Transcript
“The House of Representatives is considering H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. H.R. 459 would enable the Government Accountability Office (G.A.O.) to conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve, something it cannot do under existing law. Finally, after trillions of dollars, secret deals and Wall Street bailouts – a thorough audit.
“Recent events remind us how important monetary policy is to our economy. The ever-deepening scandal involving the fraudulent manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) reminds us that the international financial system is cloaked in shadow for the benefit of the banks, at the expense of the people. Remember, it took a lawsuit by Bloomberg News to force the Fed to reveal that it had created more than $7 trillion to rescue the banks during the financial crisis.
“We already know that the Federal Reserve had knowledge of the Libor scheme, at least as far back as 2007. During the financial crises of 2008 and in the aftermath, the Federal Reserve extended extraordinary support to financial institutions that crashed the economy with reckless speculation, and on that support many of the firms made billions in profit and paid obscene bonuses. I fought hard to have the partial audit included in the Dodd-Frank and we learned about some of the Fed’s responses to the fiscal crisis, but we need to learn the full extent of the Fed’s activities.
“The Fed should not be permitted to operate in the dark without oversight by Congress and accountability to the people. The American people deserve no less than a full and complete audit.
“The Federal Reserve wants to stay independent; independent of the Constitution, independent of Congressional oversight and independent of the rule of law. We can’t let that happen. It’s time to audit the fed.”