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.

Marco Rubio

Today on the Guetzloe Report Former Speaker Marco Rubio stated that he supports the Audit the Federal Reserve Bill.  If he were an Elected Senator in the US Senate he would support this bill.  The house version of the bill HR-1207 already has more than the majority of the House signed on as Co-Sponsors.  Here’s the audio of the interview

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Audio courtesy of The Guetzloe Report & Ax The Tax

HR-1207 was introduced by Ron Paul (R-Galveston, TX) and Co-Authored by Bill Posey (R-Melbourne, FL) Currently it has 253 co-sponsors in the House.  S-604 has been introduced in the Senate by Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) Currently it has 3 co-sponsors.

Sen. Jim DiMint of South Carolina attempted to include it with a pre-existing bill but Democrats argued that it violated Rule 16 even though many of the items in the current bill violated the same rule. I guess we can chop that one up to party politics.

According to the Heritage foundation it is a jobs killing bill. They have released a fact sheet located here.  Several groups have come out urging a call to action on this bill, including Americans for Prosperity and the Campaign for Liberty

Americans for Prosperity Spokesperson had this to say about the bill:

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Jesse Benton from the Campaign for Liberty had this to say:

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His organization has released the following statement and is urging its members to contact members of congress. “HR 2454, the “Cap-and-Trade” bill scheduled to come before the house on Friday, is nothing more than a thinly disguised energy tax that will hit every single American.

Energy companies will pass the costs of their new regulations through to consumers in the form of huge price increases, meaning higher electric bills, gas prices, and increased costs across the board.

Barack Obama has estimated the costs of this legislation to American taxpayers to be over 650 BILLION dollars over the next eight years, and that figure is no doubt just a fraction of the real cost.

But even that modest estimate amounts to hundreds of dollars a year in increased living expenses for every family — and will more likely cost thousands a year.

Higher costs of doing business also means companies will be forced to lay off more workers. This current economic crisis is no time for Congress to consider both raising prices on hard-working Americans AND costing them their jobs.”

An aide in Adam Putnam’s (R-Bartow) office said that he has not made his final decision yet and is still reading through the bill.

Kathy Castor (D-Tampa) released a press release in May praising the bill.  You can read her Press Release here

On The Web: Americans for Prosperity, Campaign for Liberty, The Heritage Foundation