Open Letter to VA Congressional Delegation Regarding Federal Reserve Policy

The Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation has issued a strong condemnation against recent Federal Reserve policy regarding “Quantitative Easing”. Read the letter that was sent to VA legislators below:

The Federal Reserve, Treasury and White House believe that debasing our sovereign currency by creating inflation is just another policy tool. They are terribly wrong. It is already costing America dearly and is going to get worse—much worse.

On June 3, 2009, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stated under oath before Congress: “The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.” Tragically, for the American people, on November 3, 2010, the Fed announced a new commitment to purchase, or monetize, $600+ Billion in U.S. Treasury debt. The Fed will buy this debt with brand new money, clicked into existence by Chairman Bernanke.
According to dissenting Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher:

The math of this new exercise is readily transparent: The Federal Reserve will buy $110 billion a month in Treasuries, an amount that, annualized, represents the projected deficit of the federal government for next year. For the next eight months, the nation’s central bank will be monetizing the federal debt.

Chairman Bernanke’s new program, which the Fed says it will “adjust as needed,” is an open-ended threat to the U.S. Dollar. Americans have to stop and question why our sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar, has fallen over 44% since Bernanke began pumping money into the system beginning back in 2002.

Inflation is a man-made phenomenon. It is a direct result of increasing the money supply. Make no mistake. Inflation in the US is not due to a housing shortage, a food shortage, or a scarcity of energy sources. Inflation is the direct result of government spending and the Fed’s attempts to paper over deficits by monetizing the debt. Inflation and debasement of our sovereign currency, indeed the world’s reserve currency, is apparently just another policy tool by the Fed to bail out financial mismanagement and misdeeds.

Since the financial crisis began in 2007, the Fed has aggressively lowered interest rates to negative real returns and continues to massively increase the supply of available U.S. Dollars. Chairman Bernanke seems to perceive America’s working economy as if it were a machine with knobs for him to twiddle, enabling him to pick winners and losers.

There is no end in sight to the Chairman’s machinations. The Fed, which was created and initially funded with taxpayer gold and monies by an Act of Congress, is opaque and operates in secrecy. It has done so since its inception in 1913. Since that time, the U.S. Dollar has lost 98% of its purchasing power. We believe that this alone is compelling reason enough to tear down the veil and audit the Fed. Chairman Bernanke’s recent actions make the need for this audit all the more urgent.

Why? Americans deserve to know what is going on. The only way to ascertain whether the Chairman’s inconsistencies in his testimonies are intentionally misleading or are just less than competent is to have transparency on the balance sheet and operations of the Fed. Sadly, America currently remains uninformed and victimized. We believe we have a right to demand transparency.

The acclaimed Prof. Milton Friedman weighed in on central bank independence in a 1962 essay, “Should There Be an Independent Monetary Authority?” Prof. Friedman’s conclusion: “The case against a fully independent central bank is strong indeed.”

Without transparency in our nation’s finances, we can never achieve true stability.

According to Prof. Dr. Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins, “A stable currency is not everything, but without stability, everything is nothing.”

As for letting in some sunshine, the late Senator Moynihan (D-NY) had this to say: “Secrecy is for losers.”

On Prof. Friedman’s 90th birthday in 2002, Chairman Bernanke apologized to Friedman for the Fed’s wrong-headed policies during the Great Depression which added years to America’s misery. The Fed and President Richard Nixon led the U.S. departure from the gold standard in 1968, setting the stage for the terrible stagflation and volatility of the 1970s. Former Chairman Paul Volker was almost driven from office in the late 1970s and early 1980s until he committed to fighting inflation by raising interest rates to an economy-crushing 20-plus percent. In effect, he used the pain of double-digit unemployment to put a stop to the inflationary policies, Vietnam War deficit spending, and the massive Great Society spending of the 1960s and 1970s.

Even former Chairman Alan Greenspan recently officially apologized in his Congressional testimony for keeping interest rates too low for too long and creating the tech bubble of the 1990s and setting the stage for the Great Housing Bubble.

Chairman Bernanke criticized himself for first maintaining that easy money policy and then raising rates too fast, kicking off the 2008 liquidity crisis and ensuing panic. Now, promising not to repeat history, the Fed is on round two of a massive quantitative easing effort (after the failure of round one) and wants us to believe they can “withdraw” the stimulus at the “right” time with minimal disruption. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Bernanke has used the analogy of a golfer with a new putter: Unsure how it will work, he finds [the] best strategy is to tap lightly at first and keep tapping until the golfer figures out how best to use the putter.

How many more times must the Fed and its various chairmen get it wrong? What must we suffer next?

The Tea Party stands for transparency and fiscal common sense. It appears both are sorely lacking in today’s Fed, Treasury, White House, and Congress. Like all Americans, we are deeply concerned about the economy and our freedom. Americans are losing their jobs and homes in record numbers. Debasement of our sovereign currency by flooding the market with cheap dollars creates higher food and energy prices. Inflation is simply not the way out. Another apology will not do.

Stop the printing. Stop the spending. Audit the Fed.

Sincerely,
Members of the Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation

Jamie Radtke
Chairwoman, VA Tea Party Patriot Federation
President, Richmond Tea Party

Mark Kevin Lloyd Vice Chairman VTPP Chairman, Lynchburg Tea Party

Karen Miner Hurd
Communications Director, VTPP
Chairman & Founder, Hampton Roads Tea Party

Nancy Schiffman
Secretary, VA Tea Party Patriot Federation
Chairwoman, Prince William County Tea Party

Darriel Burnett
Danville Tea Party

Kenneth Vaughn
Organizer, NOVA 912

Parke West
President, Just Liberty, Inc.

Nancy Smith Secretary/Treasurer, Just Liberty, Inc.

Kurt Feigel Vice Chairman, Lynchburg Tea Party

Susan Lascolette
Director, Richmond Tea Party

Kerry Scott & AJ Kearney
Organizers, Alexandria Tea Party

Carole Thorpe
Chairman, Jefferson Area Tea Party (Charlottesville)

Rita Grace
Organizer, Constitutional Tea Party (Culpeper)

Monica Sanders
Chairman, Middlesex Tea Party

Bob Shannon
Organizer, Mechanicsville Tea Party

Robert L. McIntire, III
Chairman, King William Tea Party

George Douglas & Julie Ann Larsen
Rockbridge Tea Party

Angie Parker
Vice President, Just Liberty, Inc.

David Donis, Thom Ayres, Debbie Pavon
Directors, Hampton Roads Tea Party

Corky Mann
Director, Richmond Tea Party

Michael Laws
President, 912 Richmond

Bonnie E. Betts
Organizational Leader, The John Adams Patriots of Stafford

Lisa Nelson & Dorothy Bayford
Co-Organizers, Peninsula Patriots

Ralph Carter
Organizer, Chester Patriots

Members of the Board of Directors
Northern Virginia Tea Party, Inc.

Edgar Doleman
President, Virginia’s 99th District Tea Party

Debbie Pavon
Director, Hampton Roads Tea Party

Open letter to Va Congressional Delegation. Drafted by Jamie Jacoby and Bob Marcellus of Richmond Tea Party, November 11, 2010