Posted on 11/12/2009 11:03:08 AM PST by FromLori
First, the nub of the WH idea: The White House is looking to cut its budget deficit by using some unspent funds from the U.S. government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Members of the Obama administration are still debating the idea, the paper said, adding that the administration would still like to keep some of the unspent money in case of emergencies. A U.S. Treasury source told Reuters that it was shifting the focus of the TARP program toward helping small business and the housing sector rather than large banks. “As that focus shifts, we expect to use significantly less TARP funding than authorized,” the source said. “We will maintain the flexibility to deal with a future crisis, and uninvested TARP money is dedicated to reducing the debt.”
But as my pal Dan Clifton of the Strategas Group points out, this idea neglects certain budget realities: Is this really news? The US government has already issued the debt for the funds and any unused money would logically be used to retire that debt.
There is about $300bn in unspent TARP funds now. But none of that can be used as deficit reduction. Why? Because the money has not been spent yet. And is it really $300bn? Absolutely not, the administration decided to change the accounting to a net present value basis. So any savings would be negligible. The punchline: This story makes a great headline against the concerns over deficits, but will have zero impact on debt issuance and the deficit
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
Related I wonder if bo wants to be able to tell the Chinese he is working on the deficit?
http://www.newsweek.com/id/222142
No doubt it’s a math problem from a public run school by the the gov’mint
This sounds like Mayor Daley accounting........
Obama is poll reading, may be related to health care reform politics.
Can I use my Mastercard to pay off my Visa?
Isn’t this like using your credit cards to pay your mortgage?
A community organizers fuzzy math....
future elections.
Does anyone else remember what the total TARP bill ended up being after the senate was through? (Yeah, I talking to you, Barry! You were there.)
It is? So you are saying the Republicans wanted to do this and now obama is using it?
It must be the math was done by the stupid city kids who avoid math to get a good GPA.
The reason I see this as being bogus is that the banks are still asking for more bailout money.
There is also no guarantee that we wont have another meltdown.
If they were serious about cutting the budget deficit they would cut the PORKULUS “stimulus” money of which they haven’t even spent 50%. (Not sure what the correct number is now).
This is smoke and mirrors. When more money is needed for our financial system they will just create it. If stimulus money is used to do the same, they actually have to vote for more money.
Imagine if they used 500bill from stimulus and 500 bill from TARP...but no they prefer to enlarge governments role.
Paying off the debt with more debt, yet saving enough to buy political favors, is the kind of scheme NeoCommies can get behind.
These are people who plan on buying their power with stolen money and never giving it up, not even when they are voted out. They are NeoCommies gangster style.
am I missing something here???
The list, ping
I know thats what I thought but post #5 says it is a republican idea????
RE :”It is? So you are saying the Republicans wanted to do this and now obama is using it?”
Sorry, A number of republicans ‘called on’ Obama to not spend the stimulus and MSNBC Schulz, Maddow, Olbermann made fun of them for not caring about jobs. Cavuto was on this even before the stimulus passed.
TARP is even less popular, even with liberals, so this makes political sense to claim this. Not sure what republicans said about TARP spending though doubtful they wanted him to spend it.
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