Audit the Fed

So I’ve just released my second YouTube video on why we need to audit the Fed. I think it’s better than the first video but still has a few issues. My eyes are wandering in between my script and the camera. I tried to memorize the last script and rushed through it too quick. I’ll get it next time hopefully. It’s been a learning process.

I understand that I’m not  a very good speaker. I’m just a 22 year old girl with a camera and a dislike for the Fed. I thought that we needed to put out more info on the Fed so I decided to make a video:

Rand Paul Introduces Five Year Balanced Budget Plan

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.

Politicians typically break campaign promises more often than not. When an elected official instead chooses to keep their word, he or she deserves recognition for their consistency. With the rise of the Tea Party movement, many lawmakers are talking about cutting government spending. Few politicians, however, are willing to truly walk their talk. Some of those exceptions include new senators such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).

Last week, Sen. Paul along with Senators Lee and DeMint released a plan that would balance the federal budget within five years. It would do so by eliminating entire departments and not increasing taxes by one cent. By the year 2016, we would have a $19 billion surplus. The Cato Institute has posted helpful charts to show the difference between Rand Paul and President Obama’s budget.

The plan has gained traction among true limited government types. Campaign for Liberty has listed some of the main highlights of the balanced budget proposal:

“SPENDING:

· Brings spending near historical average in very first year

- Reduces spending by nearly $4 trillion relative to the President’s budget

- Achieves a $19 billion surplus in FY2016

- Brings all non-military discretionary spending back to FY2008 levels

- Requires the process of entitlement reform, including Social Security and Medicare, with final implementation by FY2016

- Does not change Social Security or Medicare benefits

- Block-grants Medicaid, SCHIP, foods stamps, and child nutrition

· Provides the President’s request for war funding

- Reduces military spending 6 percent in FY2012

· Eliminates four departments:

- Department of Commerce (transfers certain programs)

- Department of Education (preserves Pell grants)

- Department of Housing and Urban Development

- Department of Energy (transfers nuclear research and weapons to Department of Defense)

· Repeals Obamacare

DEFICITS/DEBT:

· Never exceeds $12 trillion in debt held by public

· Creates $2.6 trillion less in deficit spending relative to the President’s Budget

REVENUE:

· Extends all the 2001 and 2003 tax relief

· Permanently patches the alternative minimum tax

· Repeals Obamacare taxes”

It is refreshing to see that Rand Paul’s balanced budget proposal cuts spending in all areas of government including the defense budget. Taxpayers lose if certain parts of the budget are isolated from serious scrutiny. The military budget has nearly doubled over the last ten years. It isn’t reasonable to believe that the Department of Defense (DOD) has spent every dime in the most efficient manner. We agree with Defense Secretary Robert Gates that “it is imperative for this department to eliminate wasteful, excessive and unneeded spending.”

We applaud Rand Paul for staying true to his word. In addition, Sen. Lee has proposed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to limit spending to 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and require that any effort to raise taxes would need a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers. As it currently stands, government spending consumes approximately 25 percent of our GDP.

These are both modest proposals to rein in federal spending. With our current national deficit at $1.7 trillion, it is radical to continue spending at unprecedented levels. It’s time to determine who is truly serious about cutting government spending. Call your senator and tell him or her to restrain the federal government by supporting Rand Paul and Mike Lee’s balanced budget proposals today.

 

ObamaCare One Year Later: Majority of Americans Still Oppose Unconstitutional Law

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.

Most of us are likely to remember where we were when a national tragedy happened. As for me, I’ll always remember where I was when I heard that ObamaCare had passed the House of Representatives and was headed for President Obama’s desk. On March 21, 2010, I was sitting in the back of a crammed pickup truck from Kentucky en route to my home state of Maryland. A group of us decided to drive over nine hours to spend our entire college spring break campaigning for a long-shot senate candidate by the name of Rand Paul. During our days of walking door to door in Louisville, we met many people who expressed outrage over the proposed government takeover of our health care system.

As we sat in the back of a pickup truck listening to the final hours of the House ObamaCare debate on C-SPAN radio, it was clear that Washington didn’t get it. They were ramming through an unpopular health care reform law without consulting the American people. I thought of the elderly Kentucky man I met who shook my hand after telling me that ObamaCare made him fear for the future of his grandkids and his beloved country. It was a somber long drive home as we felt helpless to big government. When Nancy Pelosi successfully passed the 2,801 page ObamaCare bill around midnight, I was reminded of the Star Wars quote “so this is how liberty dies with thunderous applause.”

Two days later, ObamaCare was signed into law against the will of the majority of Americans. At the FreedomWorks office, my phone rang off the hook with people asking what they could do to get involved. Some of them told me that they had never been involved in politics before but they wanted to let their voices be heard. They gave me immense hope that the fight still wasn’t over. A Rasmussen poll released that week showed that 55 percent of Americans favored repeal of ObamaCare.

It’s been a grueling battle. Government health care officials told us that we would soon embrace the new health care law. A year later, support for ObamaCare repeal hasn’t died down. The newest Rasmussen poll shows that 53 percent of likely voters still support ObamaCare repeal with 43 percent strongly favoring it. One of the continuous messages at Tea Party rallies across the nation is to stop the government takeover of health care.

Even in its early stages of implementation, ObamaCare has already done damage to our economy and way of life. Due to a provision that insurance companies must charge the same rates for healthy and costly sick children, nearly every major insurance company has ceased offering child-only policies. Employer penalties in the law have led some major companies such as 3M to stop offering health benefits to retirees and low-income workers unless they are granted an exemption by HHS. Since December, two federal district judges, in Virginia and Florida, have declared Obamacare’s individual mandate requiring all U.S. residents to purchase health insurance to be unconstitutional.

We cannot afford this unconstitutional power grab. The health care law will cost $2.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation. Ultimately, it will create 159 new bureaucracies to control our health care.  By 2016, CBO predicts the average price of privately purchased insurance will be 27 to 30 percent higher for all Americans. Struggling American families will have to pay an average of $2,100 more for coverage. Even Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz who was originally a huge supporter of ObamaCare recently stated that “I think as the bill is currently written and if it was going to land in 2014 under the current guidelines, the pressure on small businesses, because of the mandate, is too great.”

On November 2nd, the American people’s voice was heard at the ballot box. A total of 35 Democrats who supported ObamaCare were defeated. This has increased the opposition to ObamaCare in the House by nearly 16 percent. While the fight may be far from over, we can get this unconstitutional government takeover repealed through hard work and determination. We won’t stop until the repeal bill lands on President Obama’s desk. It may be a year later but our voices are louder than ever. Let’s make sure that ObamaCare doesn’t get a second anniversary.

Government to Blame for Rising Gasoline and Food Prices

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.

Americans are feeling the pain at the pump and the grocery store. In just the past month alone, gasoline prices have soared by 13.7 percent. The average price of a gallon of gasoline stands at $3.56. Food prices rose 3.9 percent last month which is the largest gain since November 1974. Most politicians have placed the blame on everyone but themselves. The policies of the U.S. government are largely to blame for the spike in gasoline and food prices.

Rising gas prices are not the result of the free market. The oil industry is subjected to more federal subsidies and regulations than any other industry. These government regulations have ultimately distorted the oil market. One way to quickly and immediately lower gas prices would be to get rid of the gasoline tax. The federal government levies an 18.4 cent tax per gallon of gasoline. The combined federal and state gasoline tax averages 48.1 cents per gallon. These taxes are shifted onto consumers in the form of higher prices.

The laws of economics teach that competition will ultimately bring down the price of goods. Yet, the federal government has restricted U.S. oil production byharmful tax rules, regulations that restrict refining and off-shore drilling bans. Oil drilling is indeed a messy business. Due to advanced technology and lack of corruption compared to developing countries, the U.S. will likely drill for oil in a safer manner. U.S. oil spills will likely be a far rarer occurrence than they are in third world nations. According to the Guardian, in countries such as Nigeria “more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico.”

It’s troubling that most Americans hypocritically use gasoline on a daily basis but some refuse to allow refineries in their own backyards. We all share the same earth. Shouldn’t the goal be to minimize oil spills? If Americans demand alternative forms of energy, the market will rush to provide it.

U.S. monetary policy is also to blame for rising gasoline and food prices. The new Consumer Price Index (CPI) released today states that inflation increased 0.5 percent from January to February. This government statistic is preferred by the Federal Reserve to measure inflation. On Tuesday, the Federal Open Market Committee claimed that inflation had remained relatively stable. Don’t be fooled by the government’s numbers. The core CPI excludes changes to food and energy prices even though these are most commonly bought items. The Wall Street Journal states “keep in mind the Fed doesn’t think food and gas prices matter to its policy calculations because they aren’t part of ‘core’ inflation.”

The Domestic Monetary Policy Committee held a hearing last week to examine the relationship between monetary policy and rising gasoline and food prices. Chairman Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) stated:

It is unconscionable that published government statistics mislead Americans regarding the true rate of price inflation, which is much higher than commonly-reported CPI numbers. It is also unconscionable that Federal Reserve Bank officials continue to deny the effects of their monetary expansion on consumer prices. Inflation, properly understood, is a monetary phenomenon. The price inflation Americans suffer today is largely the direct result of relentless monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve over the past decade. Our witnesses will explore how current monetary policy, including QE2, directly impacts the standard of living of Americans in ways that are not reflected in official government data.

The witnesses to the monetary policy subcommittee hearing included:

Mr. Lewis E. Lehrman, Senior Partner of L.E. Lehrman & Co.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Mr. James Grant  Editor, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Professor Joseph T. Salerno, Pace University, New York

All three witnesses stated that current monetary policy including QE2 was directly to blame for rising prices. Moreover, all three advocated a return to the gold standard to decline prices. Professor Joesph Salerno stated “under a gold standard, prices naturally tend to decline as ongoing technological advances and investment in additional capital rapidly improve labor productivity and increase the supplies of consumer goods while the money supply grows very gradually.” Mr. James Grant added “The verdict of monetary history resoundingly seconded the wisdom of the lawmakers: Paper currencies unbacked by anything except the issuing politicians’ good intentions invariably lost their value.”

Government officials are largely to blame for rising gasoline and food prices. To provide Americans some relief at the pump and the grocery store, the federal government should get out of the way and let the free market provide affordable goods and services. Simultaneously, we need to push for a true and comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve to find out what the Fed is doing behind closed doors. Call your representatives and tell them to cosponsor theFederal Reserve Act of 2011.

To read Dr. Judy Shelton’s A Guide to Sound Money co-published by FreedomWorks and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation please see:http://www.soundmoneyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Booklet-SMP-Guide…

 

New Video: Exposing the IMF

Please see below for my new video on the IMF. It’s my first video so I would greatly appreciate any feedback with suggestions or advice. I am hoping this is just the first of many videos to come. I have lots of ideas so stay tuned

Legislators Put Pressure on Fed Chair Ben Bernanke

Originally posted at FreedomWorks.

As mandated by the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke presented a report to Congress on monetary policy on Tuesday and Wednesday. In order to assist lawmakers in developing insightful questions for the Fed chairman, FreedomWorks released a confidential memo written by our Director of Monetary Policy Judy Shelton that was obtained by The Hill newspaper. Listed in the five-page memo is a series of hard hitting questions on monetary policy and the real economy, the impact of inflation and domestic vs. international effects of monetary policy.

Some of the suggested questions were:

Will you please discuss what is meant by an economic ‘boom-and-bust-cycle’ in the context of a central bank’s role?

Do you believe the core inflation rate accurately measures the impact of rising prices for average Americans?

The inflationary effects of the quantitative easing are being felt outside of the United States. Rising food prices have been linked to protests across the Middle East and other areas of the world. Do you feel the Federal Reserve has any responsibility for maintaining monetary stability beyond our borders?

The U.S. holds the largest quota membership within the International Monetary Fund, which is comprise of 187 member countries. Does it concern you that its leader, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is a member of France’s Socialist Party, is proposing a more prominent role for the IMF’s own monetary unit, the Special Drawing Right, or SDR, to reduce global reliance on the dollar as the dominant reserve currency? Or what about IMF ideas for going further, towards a global currency managed by a global central bank?

The purpose of the memo was to get more informative answers out of Bernanke. It was a great success to help set the tone. Compared to previous testimonies by Federal Reserve chairmen, the questions were much tougher. This made it noticeably difficult for him to escape the question using extensive jargon or offering vague declarations.  Sen. Jim DeMint asked a specific question from our memo about former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s proposal to have the Treasury issue five-year bonds payable in gold. This sparked an interesting discussion on price stability under the gold standard. Bernanke looked nervous and rightfully so.

Just a few short years ago, the American people and their elected representatives largely ignored the Federal Reserve. Things have greatly changed. We are now waking up and demanding to know what the Fed is doing behind closed doors. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, a record number of 74 percent of adults favor auditing the Fed. With the popularity of the movement, it seems like just a matter of time before Ron and Rand Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act passes both chambers.

In his testimony, Bernanke expressed confidence that the economic outlook was promising. He stated that we were “likely to lead to a somewhat more rapid pace of economic recovery in 2011 than we saw last year.” This prediction is difficult to believe since Ben Bernanke’s economic forecasts have virtually never been correct.

In June 2007, he said that “overall, the US economy appears likely to expand at a moderate pace over the second half of 2007 with growth then strengthening a bit in 2008 to a rate close to the economy’s underlying trend.” He was uncannily wrong.

Bernanke was asked about the controversial QE2 or quantitative easing Fed policy. Back in November, the Fed announced their plans to create $600 billion out of thin air. He claimed that the policy has been success although he couldn’t answer how he determined “success.” It’s clear that QE2 has made our dollar weaker. Just look at how grocery and gas prices are rising rapidly throughout the country. Bernanke claimed that this had nothing to do with inflation.

He also stated that there was no evidence that the dollar could no longer be the world’s reserve currency in a short matter of time. He told the House Financial Service Committee that “I just don’t see at this point there is a major shift away from the dollar.” Many economists disagree with that assertion. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Berkeley economics Professor Barry Eichengreen wrote “The dollar’s reign is coming to an end. I believe that over the next 10 years, we’re going to see a profound shift toward a world in which several currencies compete for dominance.”

The first step to restoring sound money is a comprehensive audit of the Fed. This can be done with enough grassroots pressure on legislators. With the U.S. facing a dollar crisis and prices skyrocketing across the nation, I urge you to call your lawmakers to ask them to support the Federal Reserve Transparency Act today.

Click here to read Dr. Judy Shelton’s A Guide to Sound Money co-published by FreedomWorks and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.