Thursday, 28 Apr 2011 08:15 AM

By Dan Weil

If Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, had his way, the Federal Reserve’s first post-FOMC meeting press conference Wednesday would be its last.

The libertarian Paul, who ran for president in 2008 and probably will do so again next year, would like to see the Fed disappear in favor of free markets.

But "we live in an imperfect world," he told CNBC. "I’m not going to be able to get rid of the Fed." So the next best thing is to limit the Fed’s power, and Paul has frequently introduced bills to do just that.

Rep. Ron Paul (Getty photo)

"You don’t want one person dictating interest rates. You want freedom of choice and free markets," he said.

"We have to weaken the Fed. Eventually the most important thing we can do is take away the power of the Fed to monetize debt, and that would curtail the wild growth of government."

Paul accuses the central bank of purposely pushing down the value of the dollar. The euro rose to a 16-month high of $1.4650 Tuesday. And the Fed’s decision to leave interest rates near zero has discouraged savings, he says.

At the other end of the spectrum sits Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke “absolutely” should consider another round of quantitative easing (QE3) to boost sub-par economic growth, Baker tells Bloomberg.

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