Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul tells Newsmax.TV that “the Federal Reserve needs oversight” and expects a full vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on legislation that would grant congressional oversight of the independent central bank.
“We need to have checks and balances,” the first-term Republican told Newsmax. “They are an agency that, basically, has destroyed 96 percent of the value of our currency over the last 100 years or so.
“We need to do something to have congressional oversight over what they do.”
Watch our exclusive interview. Story continues below.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted unanimously to authorize an investigation of the Fed to make it more accountable to lawmakers.
The measure was sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, a longtime Fed critic — and Rand’s father.
Sen. Paul introduced similar legislation in January 2011.
“I think it will pass the full House,” Rand Paul said of measure’s future prospects. He’s hoping for a vote this summer.
“There are many who don’t want to have a vote because they fear that a vote will pass. … We just have to get a vote.”
In the Senate, Paul said he’s “doing everything I can possibly do to get a vote. But over in the Senate, it’s just like pulling teeth just to get a vote on anything.
“I think there’s some chance I can get a vote in the Senate.”
Paul referenced the bank bailouts in discussing what would come from greater Fed oversight.
“I think you will find out what we found out in the bank bailout: That a fella making $100 million a year ran his bank into the ground, and then immediately got bailed out — and still made $100 million the next year. That’s infuriating to people.
“And I don’t think you have to be an economist or a Ph.D. in business to figure out that it’s not fair for very wealthy people to use government to maintain their wealth and to protect themselves from their own decisions.
“I’m not against wealth accumulation,” he added. “I hope you’re rich. I want people to be richer. I want more jobs to be created, but it shouldn’t be that when you fail in business, that the taxpayer has to bail you out — and that’s really what some of us think is done through some of the manipulations the Federal Reserve’s involved with.”
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