Article from Reason by Matt Welch.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) this week is once again trying to overcome his own party’s reluctance to act in power how it campaigned in opposition, by introducing his stalled-out bill to audit the Federal Reserve as an amendment to The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, a Dodd-Frank semi-rollback that’s expected to pass with bipartisan support.

“I think it always has a chance of passing, but the hardest part is actually getting a vote on things,” Paul told me in an interview today. “You never know unless you try.”

If Republican politicians meant what they said, Audit the Fed would already be the law of the land. The proposal, first introduced and popularized by longtime congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul, was included in the last two GOP platforms, passed by the House of Representatives in 2012 (by a 327-98 vote) and 2014 (333-92), and campaigned on by Donald Trump (“It is so important to audit The Federal Reserve,” Trump tweeted in February 2016).

Yet it’s a different story when the GOP holds power. The latest House Audit the Fed bill, sponsored by Paul pal Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), was put in that Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse, while companion Paul legislation didn’t even get that far. (Paul did whip 53 votes back in January 2016, but that fell short of the 60 required; see my interview with him at the time for more.)

Read the full story at Reason.