Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called for money tied to gold Wednesday night, issuing a damning condemnation of the Federal Reserve's management of monetary policy during the third Republican presidential debate.

"I think the Fed should get out of the business of trying to juice our economy, and simply be focused on sound money and monetary stability, ideally tied to gold," Cruz said during the debate at the University of Colorado.

Cruz, the Texas conservative who has aggressively criticized federal spending and regulation, placed blame for rising inequality on the central bank's efforts to stimulate the economy, and called for a bipartisan commission to overhaul it.

"On Wall Street, the Fed is doing great," Cruz said, referring to the rising share of income earned by the top 1 percent of earners in recent years.

"But if you look at working men and women, if you look at a single mom buying groceries, she sees hamburger prices have gone nearly 40 percent," he continued. "She sees her cost of electricity going up, her health insurance going up and loose money is one of the major problems, we need sound money."

"End this star chamber that has been engaging in this incredible experiment of quantitative easing," Cruz said.

The Fed has increasingly been a political target for conservatives anxious about its management of the money supply as its policy of targeting interest rates near zero has extended into seven years.

Leading the charge has been presidential candidate Rand Paul, the libertarian Kentucky senator whose father, Ron Paul, wrote the book End the Fed.

Cruz cited Rand Paul's legislation to subject the Fed to a policy audit as an example of a reform to the central bank.

Paul, Cruz's opponent in the presidential race, also criticized the Fed at Wednesday's debate.

"I think the Fed has been a great problem in our society," Paul said. "We shouldn't have price controls on the price of money."