In a long-overdue move, the Congressional Oversight Panel for Economic Stabilization looked at how the bail-put money has been spent so far and wasn't wild about what it saw.
'Magine that.
A congressional panel reviewing the government's $700 billion rescue of the financial sector questioned how the money is being spent and whether it's helping homeowners avoid foreclosure.
In a report made public Wednesday, the Congressional Oversight Panel for Economic Stabilization questioned whether the Treasury Department's shifting remedies constitute a strategic response to the crisis.
It was the latest critical assessment of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the massive federal intervention into the nation's financial system.
The public needs to know more about what Treasury thinks is behind the economy's problems and how it's trying to fix them, the report said.
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"In the macroeconomic sense, foreclosure reduction is an essential part of getting us out of the problem we're in," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said Wednesday. "The refusal so far to use the money to that purpose has been I think a violation of the intent and undermines the ability to get the votes in this Congress to do things in the future."
Golly, I wonder where I heard that before? Wasn't it when some of us were saying there wasn't enough oversight or accountability in the bail-out bill and proponents screamed "THE SKY IS FALLING!! THERE'S NO TIME TO READ IT! NO TIME TO CRITICIZE IT! NO TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT! THE BANKS ARE IN TROUBLE! WE HAVE TO PASS IT NOW! HENRY WILL FIX IT! HENRY WILL TAKE CARE OF IT!" And they gave Henry Paulson full control. He could do anything he wanted to, give it to anybody he wanted to without explanation or defense. As a banker, he naturally gave the money to...bankers.
Who could have predicted that?
Homeowners got...nothing.
The Congress wanted the banks to use the money for loans and loosen up the tight credit that endangered the ability of small businesses to get the cash they needed to operate day-to-day. But the bankers who got the bail-out money didn't do that. Instead, they pocketed the loot and took vacations. Credit stayed tight.
Who could have predicted that?
Small businesses got...nothing.
Much as I enjoyed helping to pay for bankers' holidays in Puerto Vallarta, Cannes, and Vail, I would prefer to have helped homeowners avoid foreclosure, but I was outvoted by -
- the bankers and their conservative allies who, oddly, saw the banks as being more deserving of aid than those disgusting consumers who got in over their heads by being so stupid as to fall for the bankers' scams and lies.
Who could have predicted that?
Those fighting foreclosure got...nothing.
Now Congress, which was in such a hurry to hand over the money without sureties or restrictions of any kind, wonders where all that money could possibly have gone and how come it didn't help ease the crisis?
I wonder....
Will they look at their own responsibility for allowing themselves to be stampeded by panicky bankers looking, like every thief, for that last Big Score?
I predict...not.
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