Say Good-By To Your TARP Tax Dollars

October 31, 2009

Neil Barofsky

Neil Barofsky could just possibly be the only honest person watching our tax dollars. As Inspector General of the TARP program, he’s told Congress that we tax payers are “unlikely” to recoup all the TARP funds that’s been doled out, let alone receive a return on that money. He specifically pointed to AIG and General Motors. Between the two, that amounts to well over $100 billion. And others will most likely be added to the list as time goes along.

Naturally this is a huge contradiction to what we “sold” during “the selling of scam”. You may recall that we were told over and over by our illustrious elected officials, the banks and the “unbiased” news media that not only would we get our money back, but we would see some beautiful returns on our “investments”. It was the best idea since sliced bread. But according to this weeks news release, we will probably loose the “bread” too.

Another truth pointer to Barofsky is his earlier failed efforts to get the Feds to not be secretive about their efforts and make everything transparent. He says by not doing so the TARP program has lost all credibility as has the government. However, he needn’t had pointed out the latter, as our government lost all its credibility within the past three decades. And the banks and Wall Street have since joined those ranks, proving that last year.

Barofsky first pointed to this bad news in July of this year where he said the total potential support by the federal government could reach $23.7 trillion (“government”, in terms of money suppliers, means us taxpayers). That number is pale by comparison to the original figure, which was less than three-quarters of a trillion but had risen to well over $12 trillion by July. In his report in July he also pointed out something I have been reporting since early this year, and that was the $700 billion TARP money was chump change compared to the money being doled out the back door by the feds and the FDIC.

To add insult to (terminal) injury, Barofsky told us in April that he had 20 criminal investigations going on into whether or not our tax dollars were being pilfered or wasted. There’s been little information since then about the status of those investigations, or if any more had been added. It could just be possible that his superiors have put a muzzle on him concerning those “inquiries”. At the same time of Barofsky’s report in April, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was defending TARP and banks who had received TARP funds.

In spite of all this, the banks are living like kings of old on our tax dollars. Perks are rolling again at rescued banks as those kings benefit greatly from the bailout. In the very mist of their demise last year, bank perks rose 4 percent. Even as CIT announced yesterday that they would probably file for bankruptcy this week-end, sticking the taxpayers with a $2.3 billion TARP loss, it was revealed that the CEO, Jeffery Peak, received an additional $100,000 in perks last year.

To insult us even more, these same banks, along with the health insurance industry, has suddenly decided, once again, that they are for a free market — until they’re not. They are fighting Congress and the White House on “having their products displayed on open markets” so consumers can pick the best deals for themselves. As Harold Meyerson points out, “the health-care industry nor Wall Street banking is a notably competitive sector these days. Indeed, both are becoming less competitive. And they want to keep things that way”. And why shouldn’t they flex their muscles? They, along with others in the market place, are the real powers behind our government. So say good-by to not only your TARP funds (and your Treasury and FDIC backdoor funds), but to the money you’re temporarily allowed to keep in your pocket. They won’t be happy until they’ve got it all, then, like the cat with diarrhea, they’ll start looking for new territory.