TARP - What Happened To It?

You all remember those emergency meetings in the fall of 2008, where Obama and McCain were called to the White House to discuss the impending collapse of the US financial system. The meeting Obama ran and used as a campaign speech, where McCain sat and kept his mouth shut? The meeting that convinced George Bush that unless a huge infusion of cash was given immediately to big financial organizations, the entire economy of the United States was going to collapse?

As a result to that meeting, $787,000,000,000 was placed in the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). A single person was placed in charge of distributing the money as he saw fit. No provision was made for any kind of oversight or any kind of accounting for what happened to the money. By law, there is no way for the American Public to know what happened to this money.

A large portion of the pile of cash (all of which was borrowed - deficit spending) were large financial institutions - banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies. Supposedly , this cash was supposed to flow through those organizations to the public in the form of mortage relief, credit card paydowns, and low cost loans. None of that happened - that money went to those organizations, who pretty much all kept it to bolster their bottom lines. How much money exactly was this? No one except the TARP director and Obama know - estimates I have seen place this at $250-300,000,000,000.

The rest of the money has sat unused. Actually that isn't correct, because the money doesn't exist. It is actually Congressional authorization for the TARP director and Obama to spend that much money without having to ask permission or justify the expenditure.

Republican efforts to revoke that authorization have fallen on deaf ears. Obama will not even allow the subject to be discussed. Who can blame him? He's got the largest slush fund in the history of the world, and Congress' authority to spend it however he wants to without fear of anyone questioning it.

Some Republicans in the new House leadership have announced that they will hold investigations into TARP, and demand an accounting of the expenditures. Republican, Democrat, I don't care ... we deserve to know what has happened to this incredible sum of money! If there is any of it that hasn't been spent, authorization for spending it should be revoked immediately. It is clear that the money was not needed for the purpose for which it was made available.

Now, Obama and his finance 'geniuses' want to spend another $600,000,000,000 on another stimulus package. Even though the last stimulus was a dismal failure and horrendous waste of money, they want to do it again. To 'soften' the blow, Obama is offering to use $250,000,000,000 of those unused TARP funds to help fund this stimulus. How generous of him.

It is a very sad statement about the condition of our government and its leadership over the past couple of years that figures of hundreds of billions of dollars are thrown around as if they are chump change. This is one huge sh**pile of money, money our country doesn't have. How much? Each billion dollars Obama throws around is equal to $3.33 for every man, woman, and child in the US, including illegals. The original TARP fund was equal to $2623.33 for every one of us, whether we pay taxes or not. Where is all of it? What has happened to it? Why can't we hold anyone acocuntable for it?

I want to know ...