May 11, 2010 12:35PM 

# Not Too Late to “Audit the Fed” 

By [Mark A. Calabria](https://www.cato.org/people/mark-calabria) 

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Last week I [wrote](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/07/federal-reserve-1-transparency-0/) about Senator Sanders’ “compromise” with Senator Dodd and the White House on auditing the Federal Reserve. To re-cap, the compromise would drop any auditing of monetary policy and simply focus on the Fed’s emergency lending facilities. See my previous post for why I believe that compromise is a big win for the Fed and a loss for the American public.

The good news is that Senator Sanders’ compromise does not end the debate. Senator Vitter has filed an amendment (#[3760](http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r111:FLD001:S53014)) that mirrors the original Sanders’ amendment, including an audit of monetary policy. With any luck, other Senators will be able to decide for themselves whether the Sanders-Dodd compromise offers sufficient transparency of the Fed’s actions.

I also highly suggest reading Arnold Kling’s recent Cato briefing paper on the issue, “[The Case for Auditing the Fed Is Obvious](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11702).”

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