"In the past, the Federal Reserve was held in very high esteem," said Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a libertarian who twice ran quixotic presidential campaigns and remains a darling of skeptics of Washington. Now, it's "the source of our problem," suggests Paul, author of the best-seller "End the Fed."

Usually an outlier, Paul suddenly has found an army of at least 307 House colleagues and 30 senators marching behind his legislation to subject the Fed to intense scrutiny by Congress' Government Accountability Office. The House Financial Services Committee endorsed Paul's approach 43-26 last week over objections from its chairman, Barney Frank, D-Mass.