Last week I wrote 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) 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.”