
While I oppose giving the Fed any additional power, even members who support an expansion should support dealing with the crucial issue of Fed oversight - before proposals for giving the Fed additional power as a regulator of the financial system are discussed. Using Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act, the Fed has gone on the warpath over the past two years. It has involved itself in direct financial support to individual firms such as Bear Stearns and American International Group, has developed new credit facilities to funnel money to numerous other financial companies and has boosted its balance sheet to more than $2 trillion - secure in the knowledge that the legal blocks put in place in 31 U.S.C. 714 to prevent GAO audits of the most significant of the Fed's actions will hide it from any serious oversight. For an organization with arguably as much clout as the rest of the federal government put together to be able to escape significant oversight is a situation that needs to be rectified immediately.
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