Kathianne
04-03-2009, 07:24 AM
:laugh2: Well it would be funny, if it wasn't so devastating to our children's futures:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/members-sought-tarp-cash-for-banks-back-home-2009-04-02.html
Members sought TARP cash for banks back home
By Kevin Bogardus and Silla Brush
Posted: 04/02/09 08:22 PM [ET]
Several prominent lawmakers have pressed one of the nation’s top bank regulators to rescue financial institutions in their home states with money Congress allocated for government bailouts.
In letters, e-mails and faxes to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), senior senators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), wrote to agency Chairwoman Sheila Bair and others at the FDIC about applications by constituent banks for bailout funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)....
...Critics, including government watchdog offices, have charged that the TARP process and other decisions behind many of the government bailouts have been influenced by the political climate in Washington. ...
...Critics argue that the process has been opaque in awarding money under the TARP program. Banks submit applications for money to their primary regulators, such as the FDIC, which then recommend a decision to the Treasury Department. Steve Ellis, vice president for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said, “The veiled language in these letters here is an attempt to influence the actions of FDIC to bail out banks that may or may not need to be bailed out.”
The special inspector general over TARP, Neil Barofsky, said in a report in February that he was conducting an audit of “outside influences” in how banks were awarded capital. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in late January that he would be issuing guidelines to limit lobbying and “political influence” in the bailout....
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/members-sought-tarp-cash-for-banks-back-home-2009-04-02.html
Members sought TARP cash for banks back home
By Kevin Bogardus and Silla Brush
Posted: 04/02/09 08:22 PM [ET]
Several prominent lawmakers have pressed one of the nation’s top bank regulators to rescue financial institutions in their home states with money Congress allocated for government bailouts.
In letters, e-mails and faxes to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), senior senators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), wrote to agency Chairwoman Sheila Bair and others at the FDIC about applications by constituent banks for bailout funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)....
...Critics, including government watchdog offices, have charged that the TARP process and other decisions behind many of the government bailouts have been influenced by the political climate in Washington. ...
...Critics argue that the process has been opaque in awarding money under the TARP program. Banks submit applications for money to their primary regulators, such as the FDIC, which then recommend a decision to the Treasury Department. Steve Ellis, vice president for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said, “The veiled language in these letters here is an attempt to influence the actions of FDIC to bail out banks that may or may not need to be bailed out.”
The special inspector general over TARP, Neil Barofsky, said in a report in February that he was conducting an audit of “outside influences” in how banks were awarded capital. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in late January that he would be issuing guidelines to limit lobbying and “political influence” in the bailout....