The Federal Reserve

[Hoosier Hillbilly]

Ron Paul left Congress nearly two years ago, but his longtime drive to audit the Federal Reserve is finally coming to fruition.

A bill to that effect doesn't go as far as the ex-Republican congressman - and three-time presidential candidate - would like. He's long advocated abolishing the nation's central bank. But the bill coming to a House vote this week is a step in his direction.

The proposal, by GOP Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, would order the Government Accountability Office - Congress's chief investigative arm - to review the Fed's decision-making, particularly on monetary policy.
About GAO : www.gao.gov/about/index.html

Congress established the Federal Reserve in 1913. The system, which consists of a board of governors and 12 regional banks, act as lenders of last resort to the country's banking system, and it is charged both with fighting inflation and with promoting economic growth and employment.

Critics, like Rep. Broun, contend those actions lead to "money printing" that eventually spurs inflation, rather than mitigating it.

This will be one of Broun's final legislative acts on Capitol Hill. He lost a Senate Republican primary in Georgia earlier this year.

The Congressional Budget Office said the bill would cost about $5 million for the staff required to conduct the audit. The CBO also said the Federal Reserve would spend money complying with the review, which would end up costing the government about $3 million in lower revenue from the Fed over the next decade.

[Hoosier Hillbilly]

Picking "Excerpts" from the website below:
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/08/05/government-failed-to-report-619-billion-in-spending-report-says/

At last check, less than 8 percent of the site’s spending information was accurate, and federal agencies had failed to report nearly ((($620 billion))) in grants, loans and other forms of assistance awards, according to a recent report from Congress’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.

The GAO said a review of the 2012 data found “significant underreporting of awards and few that contained information that was fully consistent with the information in agency records.”

It is disappointing that the federal bureaucracy is so vast and unaccountable that the administration cannot enact the government to disclose how and where it spends money.