Want to Fight Inflation? Want Transparency? Want Banks Held Accountable? Rand Paul Has Three Words.

Audit the Fed. LEARN MORE [CLICK HERE]

That was his message — posted publicly, stated plainly, without apology.

Want to tackle rising inflation? Audit the Fed. Want transparency in our financial system? Audit the Fed. Want big banks to be accountable to everyday Americans? Audit the Fed.

Three problems. One answer. And the institution that has the most to lose from that answer has been fighting it for over a decade.

[ FREE GUIDE — WHILE WASHINGTON DEBATES, HERE IS WHAT SMART INVESTORS ARE ALREADY DOING ]

The Number That Explains Everything

In 2024, the Federal Reserve paid $186 billion in interest to banks.

Not to small businesses. Not to retirement savers. Not to the families who watched their purchasing power get destroyed by the inflation the Fed created and then failed to control.

To banks. For not lending money to consumers.

Rand Paul wrote about this in a Fox Business op-ed in 2025. From 2008 to 2016, the Fed’s interest payments to banks averaged $5 billion per year. After 2016 the rate started climbing. By 2022 those payments hit $60 billion. By 2023 they had risen to $176 billion. By 2024 they reached $186 billion — and 44 percent of those payments went to foreign banks.

The Fed has been operating at a loss since 2022. It is paying out more in bank subsidies than it is taking in. The resulting shortfall gets added to the national debt — which means every American taxpayer is effectively funding these payments to banks.

Paul’s description of the Fed’s position on accountability is worth quoting directly.

“If you ask them, accountability to the American people and to the taxpayers who prop up their financial house of cards is actually bad. From the Fed’s perspective, to even question this arrangement is in some way harmful or dangerous.”

What Audit the Fed Would Actually Do

Paul has been introducing the Federal Reserve Transparency Act since 2011. The bill would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a complete audit of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and all Federal Reserve banks within one year and report to Congress within 90 days.

That is not a radical proposal. That is basic governmental accountability applied to an institution that makes decisions affecting every mortgage, every savings account, every retirement fund, and every dollar of purchasing power in the country.

“No institution holds more power over the future of the American economy and the value of our savings than the Federal Reserve,” Paul has said. “It’s long past time for Congress to stop shirking its duty and hold the Federal Reserve accountable.”

The bill has received bipartisan support at various points. In 2016, 53 senators voted for it. In 2023, Paul forced a vote and got 46 senators on board. Both times, enough votes came in against it to block passage.

Meanwhile the Fed spent $2.5 billion renovating its Washington headquarters — a $600 million cost overrun that Paul’s Waste Report exposed. It paid $186 billion in subsidies to banks last year. And it remains exempt from a full audit by Congress or the Government Accountability Office.

That is not an oversight. That is a design feature.

The Inflation Connection Nobody in Washington Admits

Paul’s case for auditing the Fed is not just about transparency for its own sake. It connects directly to inflation — and to who pays for it.

When the Fed expands the money supply, it inflates the currency. That inflation works as a hidden tax on everyone holding dollars. It is not voted on. It is not debated. It is not listed on any bill that Congress passes. It simply erodes the purchasing power of savings, wages, and retirement accounts — quietly, consistently, by design.

At the same time, the Fed pays billions in interest to the banks that hold its reserves. Those banks earn guaranteed returns while ordinary savers watch their purchasing power shrink.

This is the mechanism Paul has been trying to expose for over a decade. The Fed creates inflation that takes from savers. Then it pays the big banks to hold the money it created. The taxpayer funds both sides of the transaction — once through the inflation tax and again through the growing national debt the Fed’s losses contribute to.

What the Treasury Secretary Now Admits

Something notable happened in July 2025.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said publicly that the US needs to “examine the entire Federal Reserve institution and whether they have been successful. Has the organization succeeded in its mission? All these PhDs over there, I don’t know what they do.”

That is not Rand Paul talking. That is the sitting US Treasury Secretary questioning whether the Fed has done its job.

The momentum for transparency and accountability is growing. The question is not whether the Federal Reserve will eventually face scrutiny. The question is whether your savings will still be in a position to benefit when it does.

Paul has spent his career in Washington trying to fix this from the inside. The fix has not come yet. And while the debate continues, the inflation tax keeps running, the bank subsidies keep flowing, and the purchasing power of dollar-denominated savings keeps declining.

For retirement savers who have been watching this and drawing their own conclusions, the free guide below explains what some Americans are doing right now — moving a portion of their savings outside the system Paul has spent his career trying to reform.

[ FREE GUIDE — WHILE WASHINGTON DEBATES, HERE IS WHAT SMART INVESTORS ARE ALREADY DOING ]