Paul is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology on the Financial Services, which oversees the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Mint and American involvement with international development groups like the World Bank. Unless someone bumps him, he’s next in line for the subcommittee gavel.
This means that Ron Paul will be in charge of ensuring that monetary policy is transparent. Ron Paul, who blames the Fed for manipulating interest rates in a way that deteriorates the way a healthy market functions, will make sure that the public knows what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke does all day.
The Federal Reserve has enjoyed casual oversight while Congressman Barney Frank served as chairman of the Monetary Policy subcommittee. That is about to change.
Ron Paul has spent his tenure in politics pushing vehemently for a Federal Reserve audit. Paul has been particularly forceful in asking that the Fed reveal where the government is actually spending TARP funds.
After the Nov. 2 election, Ron Paul made it perfectly clear that he intends to use his oversight power to keep the Fed transparent:
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott, Marc Scribner and Lee Doren bring you Episode 89 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We chew over sin taxes, enviro attacks on Al Gore, free booze, Eric Massa’s $40,000 payoff and the recent Tax Day Tea Party protests in D.C.
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott and Marc Scribner bring you Episode 88 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We take on utility bureaucrats in the Southland, wine freedom in New York, Facebook privacy fears and World Series scandal.
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott, Marc Scribner and Ryan Radia bring you Episode 87 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We take on the politics in the land of Lincoln, the chances of a union pension fund bailout, the fallout from Climategate and the strange bedfellows of electronic privacy.
Republicans will lose many seats in Congress due to right-wing paranoia about the census and refusal to fill out Census forms, gloats the liberal web site Daily Kos. The number of congressional districts a state gets is based on how many of its citizens return completed Census forms. Because voters in conservative states are completing and returning Census forms at lower rates than voters in liberal states, conservative states will lose many seats in the House of Representatives that they would otherwise gain due to increases in their population.
Republican-leaning “Red States” will also lose out on billions of dollars in federal funds, which are apportioned based largely on population.
Unlike many things the federal government does, the Census is expressly authorized by the explicit language of the Constitution. (As a believer in free markets, limited government, and the Constitution, I have criticized some of the legislation backed by the Obama administration as being unconstitutional and beyond Congress’s enumerated powers. But the Census and the questions it asks are perfectly constitutional, even though some of those questions may seem unnecessary.)
A few white Census respondents are stupidly listing their race as “human” or “some other race” rather than white. Many commenters at the conservative website Free Republic say they will just refuse to report their race on their Census forms, viewing it as irrelevant.
This inaccurate reporting of racial information may unintentionally prolong racial set-aside programs that are obsolete and no longer necessary. By making the white percentage of the population appear smaller than it in fact is, such responses can make it easier for the federal government to get away with racial quotas, which are based on so-called disparity studies, which measure the supposed gap between racial percentages in the population and racial percentages in awards of government contracts. Under Supreme Court rulings like the 1987 Paradise decision, quotas are supposed to be used only as a “last resort” and for no longer than absolutely necessary. But faulty Census data can give them a new lease on life, even when they serve no valid purpose, and enforce, rather than remedy, discrimination.
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott, and William Yeatman bring you Episode 86 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We cover the unfolding Obama agenda on Capitol Hill, Wayne Crew on manufacturing and innovation, roadblocks for U.S. companies in China, the Toyota sudden acceleration story and a media roundup from Human Achievement Hour.
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott, Greg Conko and Michelle Minton bring you Episode 85 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We put the big vote on health care front and center, while also touching on protests over immigration and legal challenges to the EPA’s greenhouse gas rules. We wrap up with a discussion of WWF’s Earth Hour and its scrappy competitor, Human Achievement Hour.
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott and Marc Scribner collaborate to bring you Episode 83 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We cover the ever-growing deficit, the Reagan legacy, Cablevision v. ABC, the RNC’s fundraising strategy and David Paterson on scandal watch.
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott and Brooke Oberwetter unite to bring you Episode 82 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We cover lessons from Chile, heathcare legislation on life support, a perfect storm for the IPCC, underage iPod assemblers and Charlie Rangel’s fairy godmother.
Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott and Marc Scribner collaborate to give you Episode 81 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We cover the political adventures of CPAC 2010, Toyota’s chilly reception in Washington, the crackdown on credit cards, rising uncertainty about sea levels and the peeping laptops of high school officials.
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