WH Won't Use 'Repaid' Bank Funds for Jobs Plan

W.H. won't use 'repaid' bank funds for jobs plan - Victoria McGrane - POLITICO.com

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed using $30 billion in bailout funds for small business lending. He later repeated the idea in Nashua, N.H.

Both times, Obama said he’d use bailout funds that were “repaid” by financial firms to the government – conjuring up the politically appealing image of taking money from a chastened Wall Street and sending it straight to Main Street.

But Obama’s description didn’t give an accurate picture of how he plans to pay for the new program. And his comments sowed controversy and confusion on Capitol Hill.

In reality, the administration is proposing taking $30 billion from the unspent portion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program to seed the new initiative, not – as Obama’s language suggested – taking the funds from the approximately $170 billion that banks have returned to government coffers.

While that distinction seems painfully technical, it carries significant political weight on Capitol Hill. The reason: The legislation creating TARP dictates that repaid funds must go to pay down the national debt.

White House officials didn’t say why Obama specifically talked of using “repaid” funds in both settings – including the State of the Union address, where every word is carefully vetted.

But they say Obama didn’t intend to suggest that the actual repaid TARP funds would be used.

Administration officials have changed the way they describe the program. On Thursday, Geithner told the Senate Budget Committee that “we will support legislation that would take existing authority that we've reserved under the TARP,” to fund the new lending program.

Obama, too, has changed his rhetoric. Speaking to a group of small business owners Friday, the president described the initiative as a lending program “that would take $30 billion of the fund originally used to rescue big banks on Wall Street, and use it to provide lending capital to community banks on Main Street.”

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Some comments:

1. Barack Obama, boy bookkeeper, doesn't know what he's about.

2. He thought his end run around TARP's legalities would sucker the opposition's defensive end.

3. But his fake handoff was called out clearly as soon as he took the snap.

4. His attempt to create a slush fund from repaid TARP is corrupt and unconstitutional.

5. Worse, it's clumsy.

6. TARP needs to be terminated immediately.

7. All the bailouts scheduled but not yet doled out should be instantly cancelled.

8. This second STIMULUS, which the party can't call a STIMULUS, is seen widely by Common Sense America as admission that its prototype was a flop.

9. That is, if the first STIMULUS worked, why do we need another?

10. And since so much of the first STIMULUS has not yet been spent, it makes no sense to allocate yet another 100B to do that which the first STIMULUS was supposed to do in the first place but obviously didn't.

11. No one, by the way, as you know, can say exactly how much of that first STIMULUS, 787B, has yet to be squandered.

12. And that includes the White House, which should really trouble somebody.

13. Orszag, Summers, Geithner, Romer---LOL!

14. In his SOTU, the NEW Obama prioritized his getting the deficit under control.

15. The next day he raised the debt ceiling 1.9T.

16. Now his budget is 1.6T under.

17. And it includes 2T of new taxes.

18. When's the last time you heard the word "populist?"

19. Now he wants more.

20. No!

21. He doesn't know what the heck he's doing.

22. He needs to RETURN this 100B immediately to the future generations he's stealing it from.

23. He needs to RESCIND the mysteriously unknown amounts, several hundred B's, from the first STIMULUS still extant in some computerized account.

24. He needs to UNPLUG Tarp instead of trying to create some personal piggy bank he can break into while he blithely goes about punishing those Americans he feels are the wrong kinds of Americans while rewarding his fatcat friends at AIG, his mobster buddies in the SEIU, his nefarious fellows at Phrma.

25. How serious can a policy be that was cooked up from scratch in THE WEEK between Massachusetts and SOTU?

26. The improvisational, pivoting populist is incompetent and a phony, transparently.

The Prof

Right......

The deficit is the most pressing issue as of now:roll:

it's right up there

along with jobs and the economy in general

certainly not health care, cap and trade nor reg reform

the CHARACTER of the PERSON in the white house is ALWAYS super important, also

obama's incompetent, phony and corrupt

service on the debt, MERE INTEREST ALONE, is soon to reach ONE TRIL PER, laments the lady

News Headlines

In the midst of the largest economic collapse in nearly 80 years...... Deficits do not matter.

Once we reach a recovery, we can begin to worry about where/how to cut spending, and what taxes to raise.

Goldenboy219 said:

In the midst of the largest economic collapse in nearly 80 years...... Deficits do not matter.

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obama disagrees

did you see his sotu?

The Prof said:

obama disagrees

did you see his sotu?

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GB219 said:

In the midst of the largest economic collapse in nearly 80 years......

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Ahhh, left this part out.

I find it pitiful that you think your opinion -of whether the president agrees with me- has any sort of relevance in this discussion.

discussion?

LOL!

the president's opinion matters a whole lot more than any of ours, silly

Goldenboy219 said:

In the midst of the largest economic collapse in nearly 80 years...... Deficits do not matter.

Once we reach a recovery, we can begin to worry about where/how to cut spending, and what taxes to raise.

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Yes. Every family, every household, every business, everywhere, when faced with spending outpacing revenues by 100% ALWAYS turns things around by accelerating the spending.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Yes. Every family, every household, every business, everywhere, when faced with spending outpacing revenues by 100% ALWAYS turns things around by accelerating the spending.

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A government isn't a business, and running it like one would be a big mistake.

Goldenboy219 said:

In the midst of the largest economic collapse in nearly 80 years...... Deficits do not matter.

Once we reach a recovery, we can begin to worry about where/how to cut spending, and what taxes to raise.

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Deficits might not matter to you, but they do matter to others who worry about the pile of debt we create.

Do you understand why we had this economic collapse? Too much debt by people who could not pay it back. The reality is that we are in the midst of deleveraging our economy. This deficit spending will slow the fall artificially, but the U.S. has been living beyond it's means for decades, and it finally caught up with us.

So your refrain that deficits do not matter, only works until the debt does matter. Look at what is happening in some EU countries to better understand the impact being indebted to the world means.

Forget politics and let's not be shortsighted about the problems we face.

ScottD said:

A government isn't a business, and running it like one would be a big mistake.

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So what are you suggesting?