by Jane Hamsher

Eighty thousand people have now seen the famous Youtube of Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn refusing to answer Alan Grayson's questions about where all the money is going. By law he doesn't have to. Despite the fact that they have printed or guaranteed some $2 trillion dollars in the past year [1], the Fed answers to no one, and no government entity can audit them.

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 [2] 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.

Alan Grayson is trying to bring Democrats on board [3]:

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 [4] 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 [5], Yves Smith of NakedCapitalism [6], 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 [7]. And if they aren't one of the 135 Republicans or 30 Democrats cosponsoring this bill, why not?

Sign the statement here [8] 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.