Audit-The-Fed Language To Make GOP Platform (with a "but")

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, RNC platform committee chair, told reporters that there is audit-the-Fed language made the platform. He said that

.It calls for an audit of the Federal Reserve on an annual basis, but it is very specific that it has to be done in a way with appropriate flexibility that it does not impair the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Yes, an audit that won't disrupt Fed "independence". Doug French explained Fed independence in a Mises.org article:

 The notion of central-bank independence is one of the great myths of the modern age. The perception is constantly floated and the words mouthed. Every president and potential presidential candidate swears the Fed's independence is sacrosanct. Even before becoming president, Barack Obama spoke in reverence of Ben Bernanke's operation. "Senator Obama made clear his respect for the independence of the Federal Reserve System and the special importance of its role during periods of economic uncertainty," Obama's Senate spokesman Michael Ortiz told Reuters in July of 2008.

In May the current Fed chair told a conference in Tokyo that he and other central bankers must be left alone to expertly guide their respective economies; otherwise, Bernanke said, "political interference in monetary policy can generate undesirable boom-bust cycles that ultimately lead to both a less stable economy and higher inflation."

For those who believe this sort of nonsense — or are under the impression that political leaders and the posses surrounding them are wise, thoughtful, and have the best interests of the country at heart — a quick read through a small book should disabuse the most ardent democracy lover of these notions. Inside the Nixon Administration: The Secret Diary of Arthur Burns, 1969–1974 gives the reader a peek into the oval office and should give one pause.

But wait a minute; the Fed chairman doesn't hang out at the White House. The president and the head central banker only run into one another on the Washington cocktail circuit, nodding politely but keeping a respectable distance. Otherwise people would talk.

However, Arthur Burns spent lots of time with Richard Nixon and Nixon's staff and advisors. After spending the better part of an especially trying day at the White House, he concluded his January 19, 1972, entry with "Vanity! What Vanity! Why do grown men act so foolishly?"

This from a guy who, when a German reporter asked how he could have pulled the trigger on a damaging monetary policy, said a Fed chairman has to do what the president demands or "the central bank would lose its independence."