With little public notice or fanfare, the federal government has been providing financial institutions involved in the student loan business with a bailout projected to be over $100 billion. With the federal government now helping to provide the financing for 80 percent of the “private” market for FFEL loans, it is ridiculous to classify it as anything other than a massive corporate welfare system.

Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) is out to protect the independence of the Fed from the risk of an intrusive audit from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The risk comes in the form of a bill initiated by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson that calls for an audit of the Fed. The bill, which now has more than 300 co-sponsors, would allow Congress to find out who the Fed lent more than $2 trillion to through its special lending facilities, and under what terms. Congress would also be able to find out which countries were allowed to take advantage of dollar swaps at the peak of the financial crisis last fall.