Texas Governor Rick Perry has been on a Bernanke-bashing binge this week, demanding on Wednesday that the Federal Reserve "open their books up."
That comment comes after Perry said earlier this week that it would be "treasonous" if Chairman Ben Bernanke used Fed policy to stimulate the economy before the election.
But what books exactly does Perry want opened?
The Federal Reserve already publishes its balance sheet online every Thursday for the entire world to see.
Not only that, it is audited regularly. Every year, an external accounting firm audits the financial statements of the Federal Reserve and all 12 of its regional banks. Last year, that firm was Deloitte and Touche, but PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG have also done it over the years.
Those financial statements are also posted online.
"Every aspect of the Fed's financial dealings are wide open -- wide open," Bernanke remarked at the National Press Club in February. "There is no sense in which the Fed has secret financial dealings."
Despite that public information, anti-Fed criticism seems to be the latest craze on the Republican campaign trail. On Tuesday, Rep. Michelle Bachmann criticized the Federal Reserve for not being "subject to transparency."
Those comments echo similar sentiments from Rep. Ron Paul, a renowned Fed critic in his own right, who over the years has repeatedly called for audits of the central bank and even a review of all the gold in Fort Knox. Paul introduced a bill in the House earlier this year, called the "Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2011.
The Lone Star State is rich in natural resources such as oil and natural gas, so when the rest of the country was struggling with high energy prices at the onset of the recession, Texas companies were turning big profits and, therefore, pumping tax revenue into the state coffers.
These high energy profits helped Texas stave off the brunt of the recession for about six months.
And while the state's economy is growing at twice the national rate, so is its population. Texas grew 20.6 percent from 2000 to 2011, while the country's population only increased by 9.7 percent. With more people comes more purchasing power, which leads to job growth.
Regardless of whether Perry can personally take credit for the jobs created, critics claim the numbers are just smoke and mirrors because the new jobs are primarily low-wage.
"What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote Sunday. "What you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment."
Texas is tied with Mississippi for having the highest proportion of hourly workers earning minimum wage or less, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Overall, Texans earned about $2,300 less than the national average, according to 2009 Census Bureau data.
These low-paying jobs usually do not come with health insurance, which is part of the reason why Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country. One of every four Texans lives without health insurance.
Depending on which measure is used, the jobs picture in Texas can be painted in radically different ways. On one hand, more Texans are getting a paycheck, on average, than in any other state. But on the other hand, those paychecks are more often from low-wage jobs without insurance in a state that has fewer social benefits than most others.
"People focus on the wage and, yeah, that's important, people need to support their families," said Lisa Givens, a spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission. "But sometimes it's about looking down the road, looking at an area where there are going to be opportunities for me and for my family and for growth.
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