(Newser)
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Ron Paul may have a presidential race to run, but he's never too busy to return to DC to do a little Fed bashing. Paul grilled Ben Bernanke today, declaring in his opening statement that "what we are witnessing today is the end stages of a grand experiment," reports the Wall Street Journal. The Fed's control of the money supply isn't working, said Paul, who once again called for a return to a gold and silver standard, notes ABC News. He even asked Bernanke whether he did his own grocery shopping. "Yes I do," came the reply.
"OK, so you’re aware of the prices, but you know this argument that the prices are going up about 2%, nobody believes it,” Paul said. “People on fixed incomes—they’re really hurting, the middle class is really hurting because their inflation rate is very much higher than the government tries to tell them, and that’s why they lose trust in government.” In separate testimony, Bernanke warned Congress to avoid taking the nation over a "massive fiscal cliff" at the end of the year, when the Bush-era tax cuts are scheduled to expire just as huge spending cuts take effect, reports the Hill. "I hope that Congress will look at that and figure out ways to achieve the same long-run fiscal improvement without having it all happen at one date."
