Alan Grayson
(Washington, DC) – Congressman Alan Grayson successfully steered an important bipartisan amendment through the House Financial Services Committee today. The Paul-Grayson amendment clears the way for the first independent audit of the Federal Reserve since the central bank was created in 1913.
Congressman Grayson said, “The Federal Reserve has conducted secret bailouts that range in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Congress never voted on them, and the President never approved them. This cannot go on any longer. It’s bad enough that we have bailouts at all. But it is really bad if they are secret, with the Fed transferring money to banks without the public knowing about it.”
The amendment will be part of a larger bill aimed at reforming and regulating the financial markets, in order to prevent another massive collapse. Exposing how the Federal Reserve operates is a crucial component to any meaningful reform. “We need to figure out what they’ve done and then we can figure out how to respond,” Congressman Grayson said.
The non-partisan Government Accountability Office will conduct the audits. The Paul-Grayson amendment closely mimics H.R. 1207, the Audit the Fed bill. Representative Ron Paul first introduced the idea of auditing the Fed 26 years ago. It never garnered much support until this year, when Congressman Grayson became the first Democrat to co-sponsor H.R. 1207. He literally walked it around the floor of the House during votes, encouraging Members to support it. The bill now has 310 co-sponsors out of the 435 Members, including well over 100 Democrats and every single Republican.
The amendment passed the Committee by a vote of 43-26. You can read the entire Paul-Grayson amendment here.
“I did not support this because it is a Democratic bill or a Republican bill, I supported it because Ron Paul is right,” Congressman Grayson said.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Don’t kid yourself Alan Grayson doesn’t do anything that doesn’t benefit himself first and his constituents maybe a far second. I don’t know what his motivations are but his record as a Representative so far confirms that what ever his motives are they have nothing to do with the people he supposedly represents. Look at his record ie. Yes vote on Cap and Tax, a Yes vote on Health Care, and now he is known as The Man From ACORN. Nothing he has been involved with so far has been a benefit to his constituents or the People of the U.S. so why would anyone believe his actions in this matter are any different?
January 8th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Alan Grayson’s sponsorship of the amendment directed at an independent audit of the Federal Reserve is nothing more than a political ploy aimed at distracting his opponents from his extreme liberal voting record. He knows that in 10 months his day of reckoning will come and he will meet his political end in a landslide that brings Patricia Sullivan, Conservative Republican, into office.