Money flowing back goes to slush fund (TARP)

Washington Times ^ | July 2, 2009 | Nick Rizzuto

[La Lydia]

June 9 President Obama called a press conference where he announced, "Several financial institutions are set to pay back $68 billion to taxpayers..." Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has announced the department will use returned funds to provide aid and loans to small banks...Congressional Democrats have run to defend the practice of TARP fund recycling, and even encourage it...

This is not only an unethical use of taxpayer money; it is also a violation of the legislation that allowed the Treasury the ability to lend it in the first place. The TARP law states, "Revenues of, and proceeds from the sale of troubled assets purchased under this Act, or from the sale, exercise, or surrender of warrants or senior debt instruments acquired...shall be paid into the general fund...for reduction of the public debt." The law allows very little wiggle room for returning cash to be redistributed. The Obama administration is clearly breaking the law.

The U.S. Treasury Department is now effectively turning itself into a lending institution, and it's doing so without the benefit of the law...it seems it is now becoming more of a permanent fixture of the Treasury Department.

Instead of being phased out with the retirement of the debt, the money is simply being recycled into new loans for select banks...giving the executive branch a slush fund with which it can continue lending as it sees fit.

The room for political malfeasance is broad. Newsweek reported in March that TARP funds have been recycled into up to $85,300 worth of campaign contributions, including $15,000 to members of the House and Senate banking panels and various members of leadership...these funds have become nothing less than a way for Mr. Obama's administration to take control of the purse strings and turn the Treasury into their own private lending agency.

[La Lydia]

Surprise! "To each according to his need."

[wbones8765]

Is it time to challenge them in court? I think so for the good of the country.

[ModelBreaker]

“The room for political malfeasance is broad. Newsweek reported in March that TARP funds have been recycled into up to $85,300 worth of campaign contributions, including $15,000 to members of the House and Senate banking panels and various members of leadership...these funds have become nothing less than a way for Mr. Obama’s administration to take control of the purse strings and turn the Treasury into their own private lending agency.”

Where is Andrew Jackson when you need him? This is the exact issue that incensed him about Biddle’s bank of the United States.

[jiggyboy]

I’m certain it was pretty clear at the time that this was indeed set up as a never-ending revolving credit line. I’ll rummage through my old posts.

[La Lydia]

When this started last year, when the legislation was passed, then-Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said of the Troubled Asset Relief Program that the Treasury Department “has no plans to recycle funds from the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package to make more capital injections into financial institutions.”

[La Lydia]

Also, according to the University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development, the recoupment provision, a big factor in the eventual passage of the bill, gives the taxpayer the opportunity to “be repaid.” The recoupment provision requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to submit a report on TARP’s financial status to Congress five years after its enactment. If TARP has not been able to recoup its outlays through the sale of the assets, the Act requires the President to submit a plan to Congress to recoup the losses from the financial industry. Theoretically, this prevents TARP from adding to the national debt. The use of the term “financial industry” in the provision leaves open the possibility that such a plan would involve the entire financial sector rather than only those institutions that availed themselves of TARP.

So I guess you could say they have five years to play with it, or not?

[Pride in the USA]

No surprise here. Will there be legal action, I wonder?

[cups]

Does this honestly surprise anyone??? I knew the minute that this money was asked for that it would never go to the debt. NEVER...

All the interest payments and returned money could help the national debt and strengthen the dollar. But NOPE...

[Liz]

There, there, FReepers. This'll cheer you up.

Obama appoints Biden to handle stimulus trillions: "I'm Sorry I'm Not an Economist"
American Spectator | 6.8.09 @ 3:04PM | By Philip Klein
FR Posted by Behind Liberal Lines

Vice President Joe Biden said it was “above [his] pay grade” to explain in detail the methodology the White House uses to estimate the number of jobs created or saved by the economic stimulus legislation, but stressed that there had been no “reasonable” challenges to the estimates. **** “I’m sorry I’m not an economist,” Biden said as he was describing the methodology. “My background is foreign policy and the constitution. “ (Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...

"Hi there, Americans. My son and brother are gonna help me disperse the trillion dollar stiumulus. "

REFERENCE Fraudster had links to fund run by Bidens
Reuters on Yahoo | 2/23/09 | BY Ajay Kamalakaran
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...

(Reuters) – A fund of hedge funds run by two members of VP Joe Biden's family was marketed exclusively by firms controlled by Texas financier Allen Stanford, charged by regulators with an $8 billion fraud, the Wall Street Journal said. The Bidens $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens' Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity, and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund, the paper said. Stanford-related companies marketed the fund to investors and also invested about $2.7 million of their own money in the fund, the paper said, citing a lawyer for Paradigm.

Paradigm Global Advisors is owned through a holding company by the vice president's son, Hunter, and Joe Biden's brother, James, according to the paper. Paradigm's attorney, Marc LoPresti, who represents Hunter Biden and James Biden, as well as Paradigm, told the paper he did not know which Stanford entity invested the roughly $2.7 million. He told the paper the Bidens NEVER met or communicated with Stanford.

===================================

And then he said........."duh."

There don’t you feel better now?

[jiggyboy]

Yeah I have no doubt whatsoever that he lied about it at some point, because everything he said was a lie, but it was designed from the start as a “revolving credit facility” and that’s what I remember. At least $250B is slush fund that can continue to be lent out and repaid back forever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARP