Now what is this all about? The banks got $700 billion of taxpayer money in the bailouts President Bush dedicated to help put banks back on track.
The Treasury Department claims that banks cannot be asked to account for their use of taxpayer money in a new report obtained by ABC News.
Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program wants the banks to provide details about what they did with all that money. Barofsky asked 360 financial and other institutions to account for their use of funds. More than 98 percent of the survey’s recipients responded.
- 83 percent of respondents said they used some funds to increase lending or to avoid a decline in lending.
- 43 percent of respondents said they used some funds to maintain capital levels required by regulators to protect against future losses.
- 31 percent of respondents said they used some funds to invest in agency-mortgage backed securities (government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), which in turn supported lending and borrowing for other banks.
- 14 percent of respondents said they used some funds to repay outstanding loans.
- 4 percent of respondents said they used some funds to buy other banks.
And some respondents said they had not yet used funds due to the current economic situation, decreased demand for credit, and the brief period of time since they received the money.
Doesn’t make any sense to me that banks aren’t required to account for what they spent all that money on. I recommend President Obama thump Timothy Geithner on the noggin and get him straightened out. Remember—the watchword is transparency. It was our money and we have a right to know whether it was properly spent or not.
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Well…Reid clearly said he didn’t read the bill; just jammed it through. No surprise now it was a rotten, ill-conveived, destined to be a total waste of taxpayer money piece of legislation to support.
.-= texexnv´s last blog ..Walter Cronkite Has Passed Away =-.