I hope that the Senate will vote on my amendment to end secrecy at the Federal Reserve. I hope that as early as Tuesday, through the efforts of incredibly strong progressive and conservative grass-roots organizations, we will win a historic victory for the American people.
It's not going to be easy. It probably will require 60 votes for passage - a very high hurdle. That is why, in an important step forward, I reached agreement on Thursday with Chairman Dodd that absolutely keeps intact the key provisions we have been fighting for and hopefully will give us the additional votes that we need.
Under my amendment, for the first time the American people will know exactly who received more than $2 trillion in zero or near zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve and the exact terms of this assistance. A year ago, I asked Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that question. He said he wasn't going to tell the American people. If we pass this bill, he will have to tell us.
For the first time, under this amendment, there would be a comprehensive top-to-bottom audit of the emergency actions that the Fed has taken since the financial crisis started. The amendment explicitly would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate what many Americans believe were serious conflicts of interest involving the Fed and CEOs of the largest financial institutions in the country. For example, why was Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein at the New York Federal Reserve when the federal government decided to bailout AIG allowing Goldman to receive $13 billion?
In introducing a modified amendment, I addressed concerns that I heard from both Democrats and Republicans who did not want Congress to be involved in the day-to-day monetary policy of the Fed. I share that concern. That has always been my position. I believed that I had made it abundantly clear in the original amendment. Now we have made it even clearer.
Other changes in the amendment, which I do not consider significant, included setting a specific deadline - December 1, 2010 - for the Fed to make public the names of the financial institutions that received more than $2 trillion in what are now secret Fed loans. Also, we agreed - given that my interest was the recent, unprecedented activities of the Fed since 2007 - that the audit would cover the period since the economic crisis began and would be focused on the Fed's emergency provisions.
I support the legislation passed by the House of Representatives under the leadership of Congressmen Ron Paul and Alan Grayson. Frankly, some provisions in the House legislation are stronger than the language we have in the Senate. But there also are provisions in my amendment which are stronger than theirs, including a mandate that the names of financial institutions that received Fed loans, and the precise terms of the loans, will be made public.
My goal, as I conveyed to Congressmen Paul and Grayson when we talked on Friday, is to do everything that I can to pass this amendment in the Senate, and then to work with them for the strongest possible language in the final bill.
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Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fed's Plosser: Fed Faces 'Hazy' Outlook; Must Eye Inflation
Sanders defends changes to his amendment to audit the Federal Reserve
Federal Reserve State of Play - By Steve Beckner - 07 May'10
Unfortunately I am a cynic. There has been no accountability for the financial "control fraud" on Wall Street. The Government is complicit in the fraud. They allow large banks to carry low priced mortgages at full price, thereby allowing the banks to "appear" healthy. The Government allows these same banks to transfer toxic assets to Fannie and Freddie and that is why they will continue to need taxpayer bailouts.
The Fed, if by some miracle they cannot buy enough support to block your bill, will simply move money around to other institutions, like Goldman, so you won't see the real picture. They all do it on Wall Street on a regular basis. Moving "assets" or "deficits" around to other institutions as the need arises. They will never allow you to see the real picture.
bush/cheney started all these "rules" you are referring to, long before obama ever walked through the front door.
$23.7 TRILLION in Credit Available to Wall Street!
$68 To Wall Street for EVERY $1 To Main Street!
NEW WHITE HOUSE RULE: DOWN-SIZE THE MIDDLE-CLASS FOR THE RICH!
NEW WHITE HOUSE RULE: COMMON CITIZEN IS GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN IN THE MINDS OF EVERYONE!
NEW WHITE HOUSE RULE: PRESERVE FULL USURY FOR THE RICH TO CHEAT!
NEW WHITE HOUSE RULE: ALLOW CEOS OF BIG BANKS TO SIT ON FED BOARDS AND RECEIVE SIGNALS MONTHS EARLIER TO ENABLE THEIR STEALING FROM THE REST OF INVESTORS?
These white collars crooks wrap themselves in the robes of official position and authority to justify their secret collusion and cronyism. Throw the bums out, and audit the heck out of them.
We want our money back, the money that they stole by lying and cheating. Printing off our currency and giving it away to each other at zero, or favored interest rates, is not part of the democracy we voted for, and never did. It is a treasonous use of their positions!
Damages must be re-paid!
We should start a new currency system, backed by the working people of America, and leave the old bankers and the Federal Reserve out of it.
(1) "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
We can only hope and pressure our Senators.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE3oiKuU8UI
We are no democracy if we do not know what the FED is doing. If there are no checks and balances, the FED can do anything. The only way we can check and balance is with transparency. We give a private anking cartel enormous power, with the that, they must provide information to us with what they have done with the power.
Bernie - everyone I know, Repub, Dem, Libertarian that knows anything about the Fed, economy, financial stiff wants this amendment to pass.
We can handle the truth, avoiding does no good.
May you be succesful, if you are, you and the other politicians that pass this amendment will be known as heroes in history. The peopl will have your back when the see behind the curtain.