During consideration of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2296), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment to prohibit any Federal Reserve bank from paying interest on reserve balances that are maintained at a Federal Reserve bank by or on behalf of a big bank or another depository institution. Of the need for his amendment, Paul explained, “The Federal Reserve pays both foreign and domestic banks to simply park their money in Fed accounts — in other words, to not loan money at all. Over the past 5 years, the Fed’s big bank bailout amounts to over half a trillion dollars…. My amendment ends these subsidies.”
The Senate rejected Paul’s amendment on October 9, 2025 by a vote of 14 to 83 (Roll Call 562). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the unconstitutional Federal Reserve should not bail out or subsidize banks at the expense of taxpayers.
