Actual cost of TARP bailouts: $2.9 trillion
- March 31, 2009
- News, Politics
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Forget $700,000,000,000. The real cost of the government’s TARP bailout rescue plan? $2,900,000,000,000. (That’s 2.9 trillion for my readers in Oklahoma, or more than 4 times the original figure.)
The special inspector general appointed to oversee the bailout package, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), said that the $700 billion does not include the additional financing and associated programs run by the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Once it is all added together, the $700 billion sum balloons to $2.9 trillion in taxpayer commitments. …
“$2.9 trillion is just short of what the entire federal government spent in fiscal year 2008,” said Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). “It’s like having a second United States government budget, dedicated solely to saving the financial system. And that is truly surreal.”
Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe it, if you ask me.
Previously:
$700 Billion bailout ‘letting’ the banks win?
‘Dude, where’s my $700 billion?’
Second half of bailout: How ’bout a little oversight this time?
US Bancorp CEO rips TARP, promotes faith
