Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) will return to Washington next week to chair a hearing on how the Federal Reserve system might be reformed, or even dismantled.

Paul chairs the Financial Services subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy & Technology, and will hear testimony on Tuesday morning from two members of Congress and several economists at his hearing titled, "The Federal Reserve System: Mend it or End It?"

Paul is a longstanding critic who has said the Fed should be dismantled because its control over interest rates lead to boom-bust cycles, and more recently, because of the Fed's involvement in propping up real estate values and banks. But he has also pushed for more moderate solutions, including a bill that would require a public audit of the Fed that now has 224 House co-sponsors.



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"More and more people are beginning to understand just how destructive the Federal Reserve's monetary policy has been," Paul said Thursday. "I hope that this hearing will kick-start a serious discussion on the need to rein in the Fed. One hundred years is far too long for Congress to have taken a hands-off approach."The Fed continues to reward Wall Street banks while destroying the dollar's purchasing power and driving up the cost of living for average Americans," he added. "This reckless behavior must come to an end."Paul will hear from two members of Congress with proposals to reform the Federal Reserve. Rep.(R-Texas) has proposed legislation that would end the Fed's dual mandate of controlling inflation through monetary policy and ensuring job creation. Brady is one of several Republicans who have complained about the Fed's quantitative easing program, under which the Fed bought billions in federal debt in a bid to give the economy a boost.He will also hear from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who in 2011 argued in favor of reducing the size of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-setting board of the Fed, by removing regional, unelected FOMC members.A second panel will include Stanford University's John Taylor, and Alice Rivlin, a former vice chairwoman of the Fed's Board of Governors who is now with the Brookings Institution.