Rand Paul

Inflation is a monetary issue and we just doubled the money supply in a short period of time.

But here in this country, if you happen to want to use silver and gold as legal tender, you go to jail.

Right now, there is a big grass-roots effort by consumers, who are saying that the Congress has not fulfilled its responsibility in knowing exactly what the Federal Reserve does.

But when you prop-up policies that are bad, ultimately the consumer is hurt by these regulations because the market doesn't hold them in check.

I would hate to think of a scenario in which CRA responsibility and duties don't continue to reside over on the regulatory side also.

This is an affront to the Constitution which will be exacerbated if we transfer more power to the Federal Reserve without mandating that all its Governors be appointees of those who are elected by the voters.

The Federal Reserve is hardly a protector of the consumer when it distorts the interest rate that is paid to the savers.

No other industry has that much power to select its regulators.

The systematic destruction of the value of our money has not helped our consumers; our consumers are destroyed by the loss of their purchasing power.

Who suffers? The consumer, the people who lose their jobs, the poor people, the middle class.

According to government statistics, but not according to the consumers. Private sources say that the consumer price index is much higher than what the government reports.

The middle class gets wiped out because the value goes down.

I find it rather fascinating that we are talking about where the regulations will go, whether it is going to be in the Fed or a new agency.

For me, independent usually is a code word for 'secret,' so we can't get the information.

We have an obligation, a moral obligation, here in the Congress to know exactly what the agreements are.

Of course, you know, without an audit we never know.

We shouldn't be afraid of the truth.

Didn't you find out that we are not supposed to do that around here? We don't have that much concern about it.

There is a strong argument now that the more we know about what has been going on in this last year, the more it would have helped the markets.

I think it is in the public interest that we have an unfettered debate within the Open Market Committee...

I believe if we continue to do these things, continue to have stimulus packages and deficits, we are going to have crippling inflation.

The Fed is a government unto itself. You know, they hire and make their wages and it doesn't go through the ordinary process.

A lot of us think of independence--we put another word in there automatically, that means 'secret' and 'clandestine' and 'serving special interests.'

Now it sounded to me like the majority here is for independence, which is a code word for secrecy and in opposition to transparency.

It seems like we in the Congress should have the responsibility for protecting the public interest by knowing more about what you are doing.