Ron Paul's Fed bill continues to make its way

Open Congress reports that the Ron Paul Fed Bill is continuing to make its way through the legislative process and may get a hearing in the House. (My initial post on it is here, and a follow up here.)

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank [D, MA-4] now seems to be tentatively supporting the bill. Jane Hamsher spoke to Frank and got little more information:

I asked him if he supported the bill. “Not in every exact detail,” he said, but he indicated that he was in favor of giving Congress more ability to oversee the Fed.

I also wanted to know if there would be committee hearings on the bill. He said that before the August recess “there will be a hearing on that particular bill and others,” both in Mel Watt’s Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology and Dennis Moore’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

The report, however, includes this sad note:

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s very unlikely that this bill will get anywhere in the Senate. For one, it only has two co-sponsors in the Senate at this point, even after all the citizen lobbying that has gone into supporting it. Secondly, Fed transparency is basically a populist push, and members of the Senate, needing to be re-elected only every 6 years, are generally less responsive to the people

In general, I think the Senate's more deliberative (and less activist) approach is a good thing. In theory, the Senate should help save us from legislation created in haste, which could possibly be more damaging than whatever perceived ill it is crafted to address. On the other hand, when a deliberative body does little more than preserve the status quo or insure all change is made in microscopic increments, that is definitely not a good thing.