Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, says depression looms for the economy and that failure to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone would hasten the process.



“It will be devastating if the (tax) breaks aren’t renewed,” the 2008 presidential candidate told Newsmax.TV.



“That represents a tax increase. It’s the unknown hanging over the market,” he said. The Obama administration and many Democrats in Congress want to renew the cuts only for those with income of less than $200,000.



“I don’t understand how they can think that way. (But) when I see what they’ve done with the medical care bill and the financial reform bill, they’re capable of doing that,” Paul said.



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Even without expiration of the tax cuts, the economy is headed for depression, he predicts. “That will just make it worse much faster.”



Paul is introducing a bill next year for the nation’s gold reserves to be audited.



“It’s common sense for the country to know what it owns,” he said. The last audit was in the 1970s, and a lot of central banks have sold or loaned gold since then.



“Hopefully someday there will be a gold currency, or they will return gold to the people because it was taken from them in the 1930s at a very low rate,” Paul said.



“We should know what we own. Why should anybody oppose us counting what’s in the bank, in case we make use of it, just because too many questions are raised about what central banks have done in the last 10 to 15 years?”



Paul dismisses contentions that there’s no gold at Fort Knox or in the Federal Reserve.



“The bigger question is what have been our commitments or loans,” Paul said. “That’s why I want an audit of the Fed and to check all the agreements they have with foreign central banks and governments.”



And that’s the main reason the Fed successfully opposed his proposal this year for an audit of the central bank, Paul says. “They didn’t want us —as a people or Congress — to know what deals they made with other central banks.”



Transparency is the main issue for the Fed, says Paul.





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