On Oct. 23, the Missoulian ran the Washington Post's editorial about the Federal Reserve Board. The title was "Fed must return to normal role when economy settles."

The purpose of the House bill to audit the Fed is to find out - what is normal? The Post equates the Fed to a fourth branch of government. They are not. The Federal Reserve Board was authorized by Congress in 1913. They are a separate, private entity. They make money from printing money. The more they print, the more they profit. With the passing of the bailout bill, Congress signed on to no oversight of the Fed.

I have read estimates of the cost of this bailout to be $9 trillion,

$17.8 trillion, and heard other estimates as high as $23 trillion to $25 trillion. We should know; Congress should know the amount. Is the Post editor as naive as he sounds: "The controversy provides yet another reason for the Fed to keep the promise it has repeatedly made"? Why do they have to keep repeating promises? We are not in a schoolyard. Their policies affect the world's economies.

My understanding of a role of the Fed, is to provide our president and Congress with money to fund their programs. The Fed prints more money, devaluing what we have already accumulated. This is "inflation," an increase in the money supply. By operating this way, our president and Congress do not have to "raise taxes." They have funded their programs through the Fed, not directly through us as a tax. The consequence of this what we are experiencing with our current economy. The solution lies beyond the audit, with action taken based on the audit.

Bernard Gnam, Whitefish