The Jeff Farias Show Interviews

We spoke with Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) Go to his site Congressman with Guts!

During his first term in office, Grayson gained attention for an exchange with Federal Reserve System Vice Chairman Donald Kohn on the disposition of the $1.2 trillion that the Fed had lent as part of the 2008 bank bailout, during which Grayson said (to Kohn), “…Have people ever said we won’t take your $150 billion because people might find out about it?” and questioned the authority of the Fed in funds dispersal. After the exchange received attention from various national media outlets, Grayson was the subject of an interview on the subject by Salon.com writer Glenn Greenwald. A later hearing, during which Grayson had an exchange with Elizabeth A. Coleman about spending by the Federal Reserve, became widely reviewed on YouTube, receiving nearly 3,000,000 views in the first few months after posting. On March 23, 2009, following the AIG bonus payments controversy, Grayson joined with fellow freshman Democrat Jim Himes of Connecticut to introduce the Grayson-Himes Pay for Performance Act, legislation to require that all bonuses paid by companies that had received funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to be “based on performance”. The bill was co-sponsored by eight other members of the House. On March 26, the bill was approved by the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 38-22. On April 1, the bill was passed by the full House of Representatives by a vote of 247-171. The bill is viewed by some as giving Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies that have received taxpayer bailout money. Grayson is a co-sponsor of the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, which would audit the Federal Reserve. On September 29, 2009, Grayson made a speech regarding health care proposals in the U.S. House. During it he said, “The Republican health care plan is this: ‘Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.’” His remarks drew immediate calls for an apology from Republicans and condemnation from media sources, and, according to Grayson, resulted in positive emails from constituents which outweighed negative ones four to one and over five thousand supporting campaign contributions. Grayson raised $347,000 for his reelection campaign during the third quarter, much of it attributed to his remarks. Republican Congressman Jimmy Duncan called Grayson’s speech “the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I’ve ever heard made on this floor”. National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Andy Sere said, “This is an unstable man who has come unhinged. The depths to which Alan Grayson will sink to defend his indefensible comments know no bounds.” Grayson described these comments as “Republican hissy fits”, and the next day gave a speech from the House Floor, saying “I would like to apologize: I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.” He cited a September 2009 Harvard study that found 44,000 Americans die each year due to being uninsured. Grayson, who is Jewish, apologized to the Anti-defamation League for those offended by his generic use of the word ‘holocaust‘. On October 21 Grayson released a website, NamesOfTheDead.com, which, “aims to memorialize Americans who die because they don’t have health insurance.” Shortly after his site was announced, the names listed on the website’s roatating list included fraudulent names. The name rotator was shortly removed. Grayson criticized Senator Jon Kyl who said “I’m not sure that it’s a fact that more and more people die because they don’t have health insurance.″ Republicans accused Grayson of violating campaign ethics guidelines because the website links to Grayson’s campaign website. However, according to Grayson, no formal complaint has been lodged against him Grayson specialized in war profiteer and whistleblower cases aimed at Iraq war contractors who allegedly overbilled the U.S. government. One contractor, Custer Battles, allegedly billed the government $15 million for inspecting allegedly non-existent civilian flights at Baghdad Airport, and $10 million on a time and materials contract that had cost $3.5 million. The contractor received payment in newly printed cash direct from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Grayson was enabled to prosecute fraud through the False Claims Act and its qui tam provisions While pursuing the whistleblower cases, Grayson worked from a home office in Orlando where he lived with his wife and five children. In 2006, a Wall Street Journal reporter described Grayson as “waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq” and as a “fierce critic of the war in Iraq” whose car was “emblazoned” with bumper stickers such as “Bush lied, people died”.

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