Connolly Votes Against Fed Transparency
From The Fairfax Free Citizen:
Editor’s Note. Congressman Gerry Connolly (D, VA-11), who represents a big part of Fairfax County, has now gone on record opposing government transparency. As pointed out in the article below, Congressman Connolly recently voted to oppose auditing the Federal Reserve, which controls key elements of the American economy. Congressman Connolly also has opposed serious inquiries into the Benghazi debacle and the Internal Revenue Service’s alleged targeting of conservative organizations.
He seems to believe in governing on the principle of data ignorance: “the less information I have, the better will be my decisions.”
The good news, though, is his Republican opponent for Congress in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, Suzanne Scholte, vows to vote and act on the basis of data and facts, an approach that has guided her past public work. The choice of voting this fall for ignorance or fact-based knowledge seems to be quite obvious.
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to audit the Federal Reserve. It was an overwhelmingly bipartisan piece of legislation that passed 333-92 with 106 Democrats supporting the effort. The Federal Reserve was created by Congress to manage elements of the economy. While it has a lot of power, it has never been audited in its over 100-year history.
Prior to the vote, Representative Thomas Massie (R, KY-4) stated:
Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations.
The bill would require the Comptroller General to audit the Federal Reserve and issue a report to Congress. It is a common sense government transparency bill.
It was such a common sense piece of legislation that both Representative Frank Wolf (R, VA-10) and Representative Jim Moran (D, VA-8) voted together in favor of the audit. Representative Gerry Connolly broke with his partners in the Northern Virginia delegation and opposed more government transparency.
That Representative Wolf and Representative Moran voted for this legislation shows how much this bill is not a partisan bill, but a test of how much people believe in government transparency.
Representative Connolly continued his record on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee of opposing government transparency at every turn.