The Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve. It is the vehicle that moves money around the country. The fed controls interest rates and the money supply. There are some real questions as to whether or not the Fed accountable to anyone.

In 1994, the book The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin was published. The book tells the story of the creation of the Federal Reserve. It chronicles the secret journey from New Jersey to Jekyll Island (to create the federal reserve) in Senator Nelson Aldrich’s private railroad car by such luminaries as Abraham Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, Harry P. Davison, senior partner of the J.P. Morgan Company, and Benjamin Strong, head of J.P. Morgan’s Bankers Trust Company. I strongly suggest reading the book to discover how the Federal Reserve was passed through Congress and formed.

Fast forward to March 29, 2017. One America News Network is reporting that the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has approved a bill to allow a congressional audit of Federal Reserve monetary policy. Democrats have uniformly spoken out against the idea.

The article reports:

Republican President Donald Trump expressed support for audits of the U.S. central bank during his election campaign, but it remained unclear whether the White House would back the proposal.

Republicans proposed numerous bills during the Obama administration to open the Fed up to deeper scrutiny, arguing the added transparency would ensure the Fed was accountable and free of outside influence.

Currently, the Fed publishes detailed audits of its finances but it keeps the inner workings of its monetary policy deliberations secret, publishing transcripts of policy meetings only with a five-year lag.

The proposal approved on Tuesday would “put an end to that reign of secrecy,” said Representative Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who submitted the bill.

The House has already passed versions of the bill twice, with dozens of Democrats joining nearly unanimous Republican support in 2012 and 2014. Those versions of the legislation died in the Senate.

The article also cites the example of Representative Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, who voted for similar legislation in 2012 and 2014, but spoke against the current proposal because he fears political interference at the Fed.

It goes without saying that there will be a group of establishment politicians who will oppose an audit of the Fed. The Fed is another example of something put in place by politicians that has a major impact on the finances of every American, yet very few Americans know its history or how it works. It is probably one of the least transparent institutions in Washington. It is time to audit the Fed.