Audit the Fed

by Dollars and Sense

[FYI--May 1st came and went and our blog didn't explode as Blogger suggested it would...I still haven't managed to migrate it to either WordPress or an authorized Blogger format.]

Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed an amendment to the financial reform bill that would allow the Fed to be audited. Our friends at BanksterUSA are promoting the amendment; their site can help you send a letter or email to your senator asking him/her to vote in favor of the amendment. Here's what they say about the amendment:

Senator Bernie Sanders is rallying the troops again for his amendment to the Senate financial reform bill to audit the Federal Reserve. While the Treasury Department is posting TARP bailout recipients and amounts on their web page, the Fed is quietly disbursing trillions more, but is not telling us who is getting the money or why. Sanders' bill parallels the Ron Paul-Alan Grayson language from the House bill. Now if Senate leaders would only put the amendment to a vote, we might find out where this money is going and what taxpayers are receiving in collateral.

For more info about Bankster's campaign, click here.

Meanwhile, Politico posted an article today that mentions Sanders' amendment and identifies it as part of a push by "the left" to shape financial reform. (I don't really like their use of the term "the left"--I mean, Sanders counts as on "the left," I suppose, but who else in the Senate really does? Maybe leftish...) Anyhow, here's part of the article:

Left sees chance to beef up bank bill
By EAMON JAVERS & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 5/3/10 4:53 AM EDT

Sensing the political wind at their backs, activist groups on the left are planning a push this week to shape the Wall Street reform bill on the Senate floor—and they're hoping that fraud charges and a criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs will give them the momentum they need.

It's a sign of how the debate has shifted since Republicans last week allowed the bill to come to the floor—dramatically increasing the chances a Wall Street reform bill will pass this year.

While the early part of the debate was framed by the standoff between GOP senators and the Democratic majority, the debate now becomes as much a tussle between centrists and the left over how the bill will be shaped. The Obama administration is watching the left's moves warily, hoping to use the populist push to its advantage on some fronts and blunt it on others.

As the left maps out strategy, its focus is on amendments designed to wring secrecy and excessive risk from the system, two of the main problems that helped send the world's economy reeling in 2008. Liberals want to bring complex investment trades called derivatives into the light, expand the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority over billions of dollars in private equity trades and force brokers to be more upfront with their clients about risks.

"It's probably going to be a stronger bill than any of us imagined when we got into this," said Roger Hickey, co-director of the left-leaning Campaign for America's Future. "The biggest anger among everybody—including the tea party people—is that the bankers got away with ripping off the bureaucrats in Washington."

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has told senators he'd like them to file any amendments to the bill by Monday to set up a shaking-out period in which hundreds of ideas will be considered.

The liberal bloc will face an uphill climb winning passage of any of these amendments—but the left hopes the onslaught can change the terms of the debate. And they acknowledge some are so-called messaging amendments designed more to make a political point than to win votes on the Senate floor, including efforts to ban Wall Street investment banks from trading with their own funds and to restrict the size and borrowing of major financial firms.

On the left, for example, Democratic Sens. Ted Kaufman of Delaware and Sherrod Brown of Ohio have written an amendment that would prevent banks from becoming too big to fail by placing strict limits on their size. That's one of the amendments that liberal backers say might not succeed, but it will attract a lot of attention. Under the proposal, banks would be prohibited from holding more than 10 percent of the country's total insured deposits and required to adhere to strict limits on the amount of debt they can issue.

As Doug Henwood, editor of the Left Business Observer (hi, Doug!) pointed out on lbo-talk, the White House doesn't want the "left" to push too far. This is from later in the Politico article:

Still, the White House is watching and has made clear it won't let Democrats go too far.

"Having the bill shift a little bit to the left or [be] tougher on the banks and on derivatives could be a good thing," a senior administration official said. "But we're going to resist stuff that we feel is interference with monetary policy." One measure that the administration will push back against, the official said, is a proposal to audit the Fed, which has attracted support from a disparate group of members of Congress.

Read the full article.

Labels: Bernie Sanders, Doug Henwood, financial reform, financial regulation, LBO Talk, Left Business Observer, politico.com, Sharrod Brown, Ted Kaufman, The Fed

 

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5/03/2010 02:21:00 PM