For those of you who have not been following this, Ron Paul has introduced legislation to mandate an "audit" of the Federal Reserve Bank. In typical Congressional fashion, despite Congressman Paul's bill having over 300 sponsors, it will not be voted on. Nope, instead, a bill put forth by Barney Frank to "BAN" audits of the Federal Reserve will be voted on. So, I guess we could say in a backwards sense, a defeat of the Frank bill will lead to an affirmation of the Paul bill.

Remember, this evolved from late 2008 when Bernake & Paulson committed the entire balance sheet of the Fed to stabilize the markets. Congress blinked and sneered as it became evident that a "fourth" entity had control of taxpayers’ money and could act without Congressional approval. Um, there are no such provisions in the Constitution for this!

So the real question about these two identical yet competing bills is, What's worse, Congress involved in monetary policy decisions or a fourth, unelected branch of Government usurping powers granted only to Congress?

If I were Frank or Bernake, I'd be throwing all of my political weight to prevent any audit of the Fed... the devil will be in the details

There are 535 members of Congress, and Paul has 300 sponsors. Guess who my money is on