This is why it is a mistake to confound TARP with the porkulous bill. TARP was an attempt to stablize financial markets. The good news is that all of the money appropriated was not even needed for that. But a smaller bill might not have provided enough confidence to the markets.
Porkulous and other Obama spending including misuse of the left over and repaid TARP funds are completely different. Obama is using this money as a slush fund. Thank fully the elections of 2010 are coming and will hopefully put an end to these types of actions.
You are right on the money!
Yes, TARP needed the authority of Fed, Treasury and Congress and an arbitrarily extremely large number to stop and prevent runs on the banks (both consumer / retail and financial / commercial, through electronic funds transfers) and short selling bear raids, to make sure that there is no worry about liquidity and to unfreeze credit markets and lower high LIBOR rates to make sure that commercial paper and inter-banking lending start taking place again, before even solid AAA rated companies went bankrupt from inability to finance operations.
Politically, the problem is that Republicans are running away instead of taking credit for TARP saving the US and the world financial system from the brink of the abyss, which has been responsible for financial and economic recovery (such as it is) while Obama and Dems are capitalizing on this by touting their porkulus (which has been nothing but harmful to deficit, debt, dollar and the real economy and employment) as a stabilizing program for the economy.
Boggles the mind.
Thanks for your instructive posts