By Matt Hawes
The Senate is poised to vote on Ben Bernanke’s renomination today, and we still have an excellent chance to prevent it from going through and to urge a vote on S. 604 before Bernanke or any other chairman is confirmed.
Keep the calls, emails, and faxes going!
And be sure to check out C4L President John Tate’s new op-ed on Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller: “Audit the Fed, Bernanke confirmation can wait.”
When Ron Paul reintroduced his bill in February 2009 to audit the Federal Reserve, conventional wisdom predicted that the legislation would once again fail to gain any traction.
But conventional wisdom also failed to predict the economic crisis.
In less than a year since its introduction, H.R. 1207, which Campaign for Liberty refers to as simply the “Audit the Fed Bill,” has gained over 300 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, and its companion bill, S. 604, has received the support of more than one-third of the Senate. A slightly modified version of H.R. 1207 even passed the House as an amendment to Barney Frank’s financial regulatory reform bill….
Update: Although Bernanke cleared cloture (77-23) and the final vote for confirmation (70-30), the fact that we just witnessed a massive public debate over nominating a Fed chairman is a very big victory. Fed chairmen routinely sail through. The attention isn’t completely off the Fed, either. They’ve never faced as much criticism as they have over the past year, and it’s up to us to keep the pressure on.