Audit the Fed Bill "Gutted"

I guess we kind of knew it was coming, but this is still disappointing:

Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

“There’s nothing left, it’s been gutted,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.

Read the rest here.  Excuse the language, but damn, I hate the state.

Ron Paul: Radical for Peace and Capitalism

Here he is in top form opposing Obama's wars and socialism -- and in no uncertain terms!

Increases in the National Debt

I don't normally visit the Democratic Underground, but this showed up in my Twitter feed this morning and I thought it was interesting.  It's grossly unfair in that it ignores what would, in this case, literally be off the chart spending/debt increases by Mr. Obama, but nonetheless offers an interesting visual display of Republican "fiscal conservatism."  And yes, this doesn't take into account the composition of the Congress at any given time, but the biggest jumps -- during the Bush II years -- occurred with the GOP controlling both houses.

Click on the image for a larger view.

More Bailouts?

Can you believe it? Geithner is expecting to give GMAC $5.6 billion more dollars!

From detnews.com:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the final amount was expected to be less than $5.6 billion.

"We're likely to have to put in less capital than we expected," Geithner said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.

As a result of government stress tests, GMAC needs to raise $9.1 billion in new capital by Nov. 9 and received $3.5 billion in May from the government toward meeting that requirement.