There is another outrage that Congress and the Administration is about to inflict upon us. From Donald Marron, head of the CBO during the Bush years of 2002-2009, we read that the House is trying to redirect TARP money to another handout to their best friends forever, Wall Street. Specifically, they are trying to pass legislation that will provide enhanced dissolution authority for financial firms that run into severe trouble.
That’s just business as usual, as far as I can tell. But Professor Marron has noticed that the thieves on the hill are going to use the cover of a CBO analysis to justify this $10b raid on the treasury.
In order to pay for those costs, the bill would reduce TARP authority by $20.8 billion. Consistent with previous scoring decisions, CBO estimates that this provision would result in budget savings of $10.4 billion (because CBO assumes, for scoring purposes, that each dollar of reduced TARP authority translates into 50 cents of reduced outlays; for more explanation, see this earlier post.)
So, dear reader, understand that this is the first salvo in the war to raid the TARP piggybank for the Administration’s pet projects. Most people’s eyes glaze over when you talk about TARP. But recognize that if this bill passes, they will have laid the ground work for future raids on a program that was passed with a promise that all the money was all going to be paid back to the treasury. Not any more. This is the back door Obama will use to fund Stimulus v3.0. It’s coming.
Hold onto your wallet.
