The New Republic, in its February 8th issue, carries an article by Danny Vinik entitled Rand Paul Has the Most Dangerous Economic Views of Any 2016 Candidate. It appears that TNR’s fact checkers decamped along with its top journalists. Vinik:
Speaking in front of more than 150 Iowa activists, Paul ripped into the Federal Reserve and promoted his “Audit the Fed” bill, which he introduced earlier this week. “I think there needs to be some sunshine,” he said, according to reports of the event. …
Paul’s bill …would significantly damage the Fed’s independence, which exists so that politicians cannot influence the central bank for their own political purposes. In other words, “Audit the Fed” would lead legislators to interfere with monetary policy matters and put the entire economy at risk.
There is a certain irony. Sen. Paul might be counted as one of the great champions of protection of the Fed from abuse by the political authorities. It is very probable that Sen. Paul’s motive is to rescue the Fed from having “unfortunately fallen into bad company.” Although the Fed, the Democrats, and leftish economic commentators may dispute his chosen means they may share a common ideal: high integrity monetary policy.
Fed independence from political meddling — which I support — actually became crippled when Lyndon Johnson, in the wake of the Tet Offensive, closed the London gold pool. It died when Richard Nixon closed “the gold window” in 1971.
Read the full column at Forbes.com.
Ralph Benko, internationally published weekly columnist, co-author of The 21st Century Gold Standard, lead co-editor of the Gerald Malsbary translation from Latin to English of Copernicus’s Essay on Money, is American Principles in Action’s Senior Advisor, Economics.
