Taxpayers Mislead on TARP Funds

TARP Special Inspector Neil Barofsky has revealed that the American people were mislead by then Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, and FED Chairman, Ben Bernanke when they convinced Congress in 2008 to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

According to Barofsky, "Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke were concerned about specific institutions..."

The concept of the TARP fund was originally sold to Congress as a way for banks and mortgage-holders to make up for their losses on bad mortgages. Yet, somewhere in the midst of the economic panic, the actual use of the money changed.

"Even today, we don't know what the banks are doing with their TARP funds." Barofsky said.

What is known, is that taxpayer money was given to banks and Wall Street investment firms whomade loans that went bad. Rather than let the natural forces of Capitalism work by letting unsuccessful companies fail, Treasury Secretary Paulson secured the lenders yet another loan - this one funded by the American taxpayers.

Dylan Ratigan of Morning Meeting said,"Lately I have been using the phrase "Corporate Communism" on my television show. I think it is an especially fitting term when discussing the current landscape in both our banking and health care systems."

He added, "today we find ourselves as a country in two distinctly different categories: those who are forced to compete....and those who would instead use our lawmaking apparatus to help themselves to our tax money ... to protect themselves from true competition."

Wall Street firms got 91% of the TARP funds. The other 9% went to banks that were supposed to use the money to make loans to consumers and businesses. The total cost to taxpayers is estimated at $23.7 Trillion dollars. Less than 15 percent of that amount would have been enough to pay off every bad mortgage in America. However, TARP was not intended to assist individuals in foreclosure. It was implemented to help the corporations and banks who were foreclosing on individuals.