WASHINGTON – April 3 - Six months, $565 billion, 24 hearings and 364 reports later, the American taxpayers still don’t know where their money has gone. The need for a comprehensive law to mandate greater transparency and accountability from both the bailout recipients and the government has never been more urgent.
Hearings on or related to the Troubled Asset Relief Program
|
24 |
| TARP Special Inspector General reports received from banks |
364 |
Department of Treasury requests for lending data
|
21 |
| Reports from government watchdog agencies urging more oversight |
16 |
| TARP oversight bills pending Congressional action |
15 |
| TARP oversight bills passed into law so far* |
0 |
| Comprehensive accountings made to public agencies or the public |
0 |
In spite of the hearings, the reports from banks to the Special Inspector General and to Treasury, taxpayers have heard very little about where their money has gone. But they do know one thing: that even though TARP was supposed to increase lending, it has actually decreased.
Descriptions have been posted on the government’s Financial Stability website, with good interactive tools for the homeowner affordability section. However, the continued evolution of the programs and the lack of a clear strategy (and rationale) do not instill confidence. There are massive tables of transactions, huge files of contract information, yet no accounting of how the money was spent once it arrived at its destinations.
In the meantime, all 364 recipients responded to the Special Inspector Neil Barofsky’s request to account for the use of TARP funds so far. At a hearing earlier this week, Barofsky noted that some of the banks weren’t able to say exactly where the money went, and he repeated his call that Treasury “require TARP recipients to monitor their use of funds.”
The House of Representatives passed TARP accountability legislation earlier this year. The Senate should follow suit and give the Treasury Secretary all the means and resources possible to account for the billions of taxpayer dollars spent so far, and the billions to come.
* American Recovery and Reinvestment Act did include limits on executive compensation of failed executives, but no additional provisions on oversight.
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