Alan Grayson, a real maverick, takes on the lack of vacation time and the Fed

Blue American’s Alan Grayson has been a maverick — I mean the real kind — since he was elected to Congress when nobody said he had a chance to win except of course Blue America. And he is becoming a real leader and not a follower. First, he’s trying to get a bill passed that really does help working-class America:

Howie Klein:

Alan is introducing a bill, the first in (American) history, that guarantees paid vacations. (France guarantees a month of paid vacation per year.)

The bill’s provisions, which are expected to meet stiff opposition from Republicans and Blue Dogs poll exceedingly well among average Americans. Nearly 70% of Americans support the idea. This is what Grayson’s legislation would accomplish: • Requires one week of paid vacation for employees of companies with at least 100 employees. Three years after passage, the bill extends this requirement to companies with at least 50 employees, and requires two weeks for companies with 100 employees.

• Covers workers after one year on the job. Part-timers must work 25 or more hours a week and 1250 hours per year to be covered.

Read on.

You can be sure that the Blue Dogs and Evan Bayh’s garrison of phonies will do everything they can to block it, but at least Americans are seeing what a good and better Democrat can do.

Now he’s trying to audit the Federal Reserve to see exactly where the 2 trillion dollars that they dished out went.

Jane Hamsher writes:

Last month Charles Grassley tried to push a bill through the Senate which called for the Fed to be audited, but Richard Shelby watered it down before it passed. Now there are 165 cosponsors of Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act in the House, but 135 of them are Republicans. (Bernie Sanders stands alone sponsoring the bill in the Senate.)

Alan Grayson is trying to bring Democrats on board: The Federal Reserve has refused multiple inquiries from both the House and the Senate to disclose who is receiving trillions of dollars from the central banking system. The Federal Reserve has redacted the central terms of the no-bid contracts it has issued to Wall Street firms like Blackrock and PIMCO, without disclosure required of the Treasury, and is participating in new and exotic programs like the trillion-dollar TALF to leverage the Treasury’s balance sheet.

With discussions of allocating even more power to the Federal Reserve as the ‘systemic risk regulator’ of the credit markets, more oversight over the central bank’s operations is clearly necessary. Why is the administration fighting this? Well, it’s no secret that Larry Summers would very much like to take over as Fed Chair when Ben Bernanke’s term is up next year. Why would he want that kind of scrutiny? But what Larry Summers wants and what is good for the country may be two different things. Please join me, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, James K. Galbraith, Dean Baker, Bill Black, Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge, Yves Smith of NakedCapitalism, US PIRG, Public Citizen, Mike Farrell, Digby, Rob Kuttner, Ian Welsh, Bill Greider, Stirling Newberry, ANWF, Les Leopold, Mike Lux and others in supporting Alan Grayson and asking Democratic members of Congress to cosponsor the Federal Reserve Transparency Act.

Where does your member of Congress stand? Find out here. And if they aren’t one of the 135 136 Republicans or 30 29 Democrats cosponsoring this bill, why not? Sign the statement here that will be circulated to members of Congress as Rep. Grayson tries to get the 53 more cosponsors needed to pass the bill. And be sure to check the box if you’d like to have your name publicly displayed on the page.

I’m not part of the Ron Paul/anti-Fed crowd who want to return to the gold standard, but we do need transparency, and this makes sense.

Please help support Alan Grayson because he’s working for us so we should work with him. If we did return to the gold standard, I’m sure we’d see a bunch of fun, new products. Maybe Ron Popeil will come up with a “Gold Shaver “ that allows you to bring a bar of gold into a store and you will be able to shave off any amount which exactly covers the price of goods that you buy at any store. I’m sure his closing line will be, “It’s so accurate that it’ll shave the exact amount that you have spent — Right down to the penny!”

All kidding aside, the more we know where the money is going, the better we’ll all be in the long run.