Growls

In a column last Friday at National Review Online, Don Luskin says that “TARP is looking more criminal by the minute. NRO adds the subtitle, “The issue of TARP corruption may now extend from corporate CEOs and federal regulators to New York’s attorney general.”

Luskin writes that when he was invited to debate that question on Larry Kudlow’s CNBC show last Wednesday, he “thought the allegation was ridiculous. How could the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program to rescue the banking system possibly be compared to the Sopranos?”

But then he writes that was before TARP’s Inspector General released a report last Wednesday (link to report is available in the article):

“ . . . disclosed that “nearly 20 preliminary and full criminal investigations” are underway, including “large corporate and securities fraud matters affecting TARP investments, tax matters, insider trading, public corruption, and mortgage-modification fraud.” When I first read that I rolled my eyes and said to myself, “Hey, what do you expect?”

“But then I started thinking a little more deeply and realized there’s something more here — even before the controversy about Bank of America became known. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how that enormous pot of TARP money has in fact corrupted both the private and public sector.”

And just how large is the honey pot taxpayers are providing? CNSNews.com reports today:

“For many Americans, the $700-billion financial bailout was a tough pill to swallow, but the cost to taxpayers could reach $2.9 trillion – nearly on par with the entire federal budget – according to the watchdog agency charged with oversight of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).

“Although the Treasury Department is only authorized to spend the $700 billion approved last year by Congress and signed by the president, the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will invest up to $1 trillion each in partnering with the Treasury Department’s TARP.

“So the “total projected funding” for TARP is estimated to be between $2.47 trillion and $2.97 trillion, according to the TARP special inspector general’s report . . . .”

But, wait, what about the claim of public corruption? Here’s what Luskin writes:

“(T)he Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the statute that authorizes TARP, doesn’t give the Treasury the power to make direct investments in banks at all. It gives the Treasury the power to buy troubled assets and to write insurance against losses in troubled assets. But there’s not one single solitary word in the act that authorizes the Treasury to buy stock in banks.

“And there’s not one single solitary word in the act that authorizes the Treasury to do anything at all for auto companies like General Motors and Chrysler. The act only authorizes helping “financial institutions.” Yet billions of TARP dollars have gone to the two automakers.

“Is that the “public corruption” (TARP’s special inspector general) Barofsky is talking about?”

Want to fight that corruption? Listen to this video of Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explain “The main lesson from this video is that influence peddling and other sleazy behavior in Washington is the symptom. The underlying disease is excessive government."

And yet, liberals are confused about the motivation in the grassroots tea party movement? Oh, and about the title, Luskin closes his column by writing:

“A $700 billion budget buys one heck of a big dog — apparently a dog that attracts some pretty big fleas.”