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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (3621)	12/23/2008 10:11:35 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 103300

Re: [because the Bush team seems to have decided to not come forward voluntarily with such information.] "What???!!! Since when was Bush one of the banking executives? Does he have a night or weekend job that we don't know about?" The TARP Program (financial 'bail-out / rescue' program) was requested by the Bush administration. It was approved by Congress and the Treasury Department (headed by Hank Paulson) is in charge of the TARP program. However, the language of the authorizing Act did not FORMALLY mandate that the administration had to brief Congress regularly about HOW the money was being spent by the receiving institutions, and WHAT the companies were using it for. So Congress ASKED the administration to do so. (And the Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information suit to shake out this information about what the taxpayer's money was being used for, so they could let the public know....) The Bush administration DENIED both requests. So... it's a pretty good bet that the second half of the $700 Billion (which will not be released by Congress until the Executive comes before them and formally requests it) WILL NOT be authorized UNTIL and UNLESS Congress tacks-on a little formal language to the authorization bill... and LEGALLY MANDATES that the Executive be forthcoming with this information. After all --- it's the taxpayer's money! If the banks are using it to pay big bonuses and to fund their purchases of competitor banks then the public damn sure needs to find that out!