Ron Paul's hour of power ~ By Patrick J. Buchanan

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Patrick J. Buchanan Posted: December 11, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 The decades-long campaign of Ron Paul to have the Government Accountability Office do a full audit of the Federal Reserve now has 313 sponsors in the House. Sometimes perseverance does pay off. If not derailed by the establishment, the audit may happen. Yet, many columnists and commentators are aghast. An auditors' probe, they wail, would imperil the Fed's independence and expose it to pressure from Congress to keep interest rates low and money flowing when the need of the nation and economy might call for tightening. They cite Paul Volcker, who to squeeze double-digit inflation out of the economy in the late Carter and early Reagan years, drove the prime rate to 21 percent, causing the worst recession since the Depression. Volcker, they claim, prepared the ground for the Reagan tax cuts and seven fat years of prosperity. That decade, America created 20 million jobs – and another 22 million in the Clinton era. Without Volcker putting the economy through the wringer, it could not have happened. And had he been forced to explain his decisions, Congress would have broken his policy. Such is the cast for Fed independence. But if true, what does this say about our republic? READ FULL STORY >