Rand Paul vents to Glenn Beck about Fed criticism

Sen. Rand Paul fired back at a POLITICO article published earlier this week about his push to audit the Federal Reserve as mentioned in an interview with Glenn Beck on his radio program Thursday.

The Kentucky Republican and would-be presidential contender addressed an assertion from former Fed Chairman Donald Kohn that “there is essentially no credit risk on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet right now” and that no institution in the U.S. is “subject to more oversight.”


“When they say there’s no credit risk, they created four-and-a-half trillion dollars to buy these bad mortgages. So is there no risk in creating it?” Paul asked in response, according to a transcript of the interview.

Paul continued: “But then there’s a whole question of favoritism. Is there any conflict of interest? Are any of these assets, so-called assets, which are sometimes bad car loans, bad home loans, are any of these assets owned by friends of theirs?”

“I mean, Bear Stearns is bailed out, Lehman Brothers isn’t,” he said. “Does that have anything to do with who runs the bank or who owned the banks?”

When asked about critics’ suggestions that he’s using the issue to boost his profile among libertarian-minded Republicans, Paul was dismissive.

“Well, that sounds like the people who call us ‘flyover America.’ They discount any knowledge. But they also discount any true belief and worry about our country,” he said. “I think the one sincere thing that came out of the tea party movement and that still exists in the country is that there are millions of us that are worried about the future of the country. We’re worried about the enormous death debt we’re incurring. We’re worried about the ramifications of the Federal Reserve simply creating money to pay for that debt.”

Paul told Beck that he’s had enough of it.

“You know, for about the last two decades, there’s been a revolving door between the Fed, the Treasury, and Wall Street again,” Paul said. “I’m tired of bailing out these big banks when they make bad decisions.”