TARP was no win for the taxpayers

Today the Senate Banking Committee will explore the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Almost 30 months after its birth, TARP is far from dead. More than 550 banks, AIG, GM, Chrysler and others still have approximately $160 billion of taxpayer money outstanding. Even so, the administration would have us believe that TARP has been a success because it supposedly alleviated the financial crisis and is (so far) being paid back at an apparent profit for taxpayers. Perhaps because he helped invent TARP before he joined the Obama administration, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has called TARP the “most effective government program …