Bailout Update – Your Family’s $3,000 Investment
The Government Accountability Office has a report out on the financial services bailout law and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or “TARP.”
As of January 23, the Treasury Department has disbursed about $293.7 billion, mostly to purchase preferred shares of 317 financial institutions. That’s a bit over $3,000 per U.S. family, just shy of $1,000 per person.
As we noted here before, the TARP program was supposed to be about buying troubled mortgage assets, but ended up as investments in financial institutions.
The GAO’s focus is on oversight and transparency, and it says – check out this government-speak:
Treasury has continued to develop a system for detecting noncompliance with key requirements of the program but has not yet finalized its plans. Further, Treasury has made limited progress in formatting articulating and communicating an overall strategy for TARP, continuing to respond to institution- and industry-specific needs by, for example, making further capital purchases and offering loans to the automobile industry. In addition, it has not yet developed a strategic approach to explain how its various programs work together to fulfill TARP’s purposes or how it will use the remaining TARP funds. While GAO does not question the need for swift responses in the current economic environment, the lack of a clearly articulated vision has complicated Treasury’s ability to effectively communicate to Congress, the financial markets, and the public on the benefits of TARP and has limited its ability to identify personnel needs.
Rough translation: “These guys are building a plane in flight. Maybe they crash. Maybe they don’t.”
But here’s a timeline of what’s gone on so far in the bailout. Put on your spectacles:
Let’s Have a Look at the Omnibus Spending Bill - The WashingtonWatch.com Blog
[...] Late last summer, the Bush Administration started pushing the huge bailout bill, now known as TARP – the Troubled Asset Relief Program. It included about $3,000 per family in spending. And we’ve blogged the wazoo out of it here. [...]
Sorting Out How They’re Trying to Sort Out the Economy - The WashingtonWatch.com Blog
[...] used for troubled assets – hurrah! (Recall that the first thing done with the TARP program was investing in financial services firms, not addressing troubled [...]
Edward Chittleborough
I am so tired of seeing all this bailout money going to the Big Finanacial institutions and giving the CEO’s there bonus money. Let’s keep it real here, because that is exactly where the money is going and not a thread of help for the poverty stricken people of this fine country. When will someone get it right? Maybe they never will but they will keep spending an absorbant amount of money trying to make things all better. Get a clue and bailout the people who have lost their jobs and homes and stop feeding the money hungry Conglomerates that suck the life out of hard working Citizens.