Quote:
Originally Posted by Excaliber
TARP was iniated under Bush, Senator Obama voted for it. Important changes to TARP were made when Obama took office, notably, "accountability". "Strings attached" if you would, that is why the banks are now rushing to pay back the loans. Without the accountability what do you think the odd's are the banks would EVER pay back the loan?
How ironic, Bush must bear major responsibility (being POTUS) for getting us into this mess and at the last minutes of his term scrambles to undo it! 
Never the less, the question remains: Was/is TARP successful? Apparently so, but I would not say conclusively so, yet. About half of the money has not yet been released. In addition there are so many "sub programs" of TARP it may be difficult to put a pass or fail grade in a broad and general sense of TARP. The jury is out...
EDIT: Bush's initial TARP program was crucial to stabilizing the country at that time, flawed though the program was. In that regard it was a success and Bush deservedly gets the credit. |
Was not a major goal of TARP to get the banks to start lending again? Did that happen YET?
I will not say it is all politicians [D's and R's] fault. But for every aspect of the financial and economic crisis, one can find a law that directly applies. Laws that were ignored, unenforced, or replaced repealed better laws. Laws where the enforcement of or ignorance of directly caused or at the very least highly influenced, wrong doing in financial practices.
Can it ALL be laid at the feet of politicians? No, the public's complicity was a factor too. People making deals that idiots could tell were not possible in the long run. But LAWS allowed them to do it.