Audit The Fed - S604

S604 reads as "A bill to amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes." This is the Senate's version of a bill sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul in the House to Audit the Fed. Senator Bernie Sanders sponsored the bill and Sen. Jim DeMint had taken the full text of S604 and attached it as an amendment to HR2918, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, which contains provisions for GAO audits on certain agencies like the Federal Reserve. The amendment was now numbered as 1367. This occured on Monday July 6th.

When HR2918 was brought up for a vote though, Sen. DeMint's amendment was no longer attached because the Democrats used a parliamentary procedure to shut down the amendment and have it tabled. That procedure was issued by Sen. Ben Nelson who raised a "point of order" to prevent the vote and claimed that the amendment violated Senate Rule 16 by "legislating" an appropriations bill. When Sen. DeMint pointed out that HR2918 contained several similar amendments, the Senate president agreed with him, but left the other amendments as they were indicating that the Democrats were specifically blocking an audit of the Fed. The Senate voted to pass HR2918 minus the "Audit the Fed" portion.

The government under the leadership of Obama is once again blocking transparency. The people of America deserve to know what the Federal Reserve has done with trillions of our dollars. Call your Senators and tell them you want S604 to receive a final vote.