The federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program been complicated and controversial from the beginning. First sold by then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as a plan to buy mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions,TARP quickly morphed into an incoherent slush fund. New Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has had a very similar problem deciding how best the federal government can interfere with the market place. The government’s constant policy whiplashes can be hard for the American people to follow. So here, in just 10 pictures, is TARP definitively explained: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8zzBkrv1wk[/youtube]
Is it any coincidence that on the same day that the Obama Administration announces restrictions on executive pay for companies taking government bailout money, Goldman Sachs announced that it is pulling out of the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program? The investment bank, says CFO David Viniar, is chafing under the restrictions that came attached to its $10 billion loan. The new pay rules, which could be applied to existing TARP participants in a later iteration, may have been the last straw. “We would like to get out from under that,” …
Before President Bush took office, the federal government took in $2 trillion in revenue in 2000. As Bush leaves office, the federal government is expected to take in $2.4 trillion in 2009. In other words, after eight years under President Bush, the federal government is taking in $400 billion more a year in revenue. So why did Congressional Budget Office project a $1.4 trillion deficit for the 2009 budget? Massive spending increases. In 2000, the federal government spent just $1.8 trillion. Now the CBO estimates that the feds will spend …
Defending the Troubled Asset Relief Program The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein writes: Of course, because money is fungible, critics can always say that the Treasury money is now being used to pay excessive salaries or dividends, or finance unnecessary acquisitions — or, for that matter, to clean the toilets or support local Little League teams. But unless the government wants to get into the business of making every spending, lending and investment decision at every major bank, then we have to pretty much have faith that, in a free-market system, …
