Let me posit that anyone who claims that TARP was a successful, cheap program to “save the financial system” is just ignorant of the facts.

Nobody in the history of electoral politics, and I mean nobody, believes that telling people to “get over it” will get them to the polls. (Well, nobody but Spiro Agnew.) And you can bet your bottom dollar that come 2012, when Obama’s own electoral future is on the line, that won’t be his message.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill passed the House of Representatives Wednesday by the count of 237-192. Three Republicans broke ranks to support the final bill.

The details are still being worked out, and we have to wait and see the language, but it does appear that the House did secure more disclosure, on an ongoing basis, for the Fed’s activities. Late yesterday, at the conference committee, lead Senate negotiator Chris Dodd announced that his side would accept several provisions that would add transparency to the Fed.

I appreciated the opportunity to speak on today’s topic at Personal Democracy Forum 2010: “Can the internet fix politics?” Which raises the obvious question – who broke it?

Let me mention here what an honor it is to follow Newt Gingrich…

Remarkably, the Audit the Fed movement includes all of the 96 Senators who were present Tuesday.

The Senate just passed the Sanders amendment, Audit the Fed, by a vote of 96-0. Though a weaker version than the Paul-Grayson bill that passed the House, the amendment calls for a thorough audit of the Federal Reserve from December, 2007 until the bill is signed into law. This period covers many of the Fed’s [...]

The clerk has begun to call the roll on Bernie Sanders’ amendment calling for a one-time audit of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending activities during the recent financial crisis.

Rep. Ron Paul Paul urged the passage of both the Sanders and the Vitter amendments, and Senators will get a chance to vote on them this morning. The vote is expected at 11:30am ET, with side-by-side votes of both amendments. This could hold some peril for both amendments if Republicans spurn the Sanders compromise and Democrats spurn the Grayson-Paul language.

President Obama has packed the Debt Commission (also known as the cat food commission) with members who have an overwhelming history of support for both benefit cuts and privatization of Social Security. The “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” is operating in secret over the objections of both parties. John Boehner and John Conyers [...]