Meet TARP on Steroids: "Quiet new measure may let gov't give away even more of your money to banks"

Bank bailouts

Meet TARP on steroids

A quiet new measure may let the government give away even more of your money to banks

David Sirota



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009, to testify before the House Financial Services Committee.

http://www.salon.com/news/bank_bailouts/index.html?story=/opinion/feature/2009/10/30/tarp

I recall that September day like it was yesterday -- the explosion so stunning, so memorable. It wasn't 9/11/01, it was 9/29/08 -- a moment when a rare blast of populist democracy briefly singed the economic terrorists who hold the Capitol hostage.

It had been a dark and stormy month of financial collapse, culminating in an attempted power grab. Pushed by his fellow Wall Street Ponzi schemers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- a former Goldman Sachs CEO -- was threatening Armageddon unless Congress ratified his pamphlet-size decree for a no-strings-attached bank bailout. The straightforward proposal, backed by President George W. Bush and President-to-be Barack Obama, would have turned Paulson into King Henry -- a despot allowed to autonomously dole out $700 billion to any of his business cronies.

This was too outrageous even for a rubber-stamp Congress that had long been ceding power to both the executive branch and the corporate boardroom. And so rank-and-file House Democrats and Republicans, backed by an angry public, overrode their leaders and voted down the measure.

Admittedly, the conflagration was brief. After a few days of industry lobbying, the House ultimately passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout -- but one with at least some mild restrictions. For a time, 9/29’s fleeting blast of defiance appeared to establish a maximum limit to robbery and presidential authoritarianism.

For a time.