OT - What's a bribe between good old dishonest Repubicans?

One of the standard MOs of the Bush Administration was bribery...with
your tax money.

Hmmm....Republicans seem to have a habit of spending other people's
money to further their own causes.

Have we seen any of those billions "lost" in Iraq yet?

Likely will be found next to those WMDs.

I wonder if Cheney has recovered from throwing out his back lifting
all those boxes of money and gold yet?

Well American taxpayer, how much more mismanagement are you will to
accept?

The Republicans are at this moment padding the stimilus bill will more
and more pork that you are going to be paying for.

Meanwhile 598,000 MORE jobs were lost in January because of Bush.

Is yours next?

TMT

Bush overpaid banks in bailout, watchdog says
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated
Press Writer
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration overpaid tens of billions of
dollars for stocks and other assets in its massive bailout last year
of Wall Street banks and financial institutions, a new study by a
government watchdog says.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released Friday, said
last year's overpayments amounted to a taxpayer-financed $78 billion
subsidy of the firms.

The findings added to the frustrations of lawmakers already wary of
the $700 billion rescue plan, known as the Troubled Asset Relief
Program. Congress approved the plan last fall, but members of both
parties criticized spending decisions by the Bush administration and
former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Financially ailing insurance giant American International Group, which
the Treasury Department deemed to be too big to be allowed to fail,
received $40 billion from the Treasury for assets valued at $14.8
billion, the oversight panel found.

"Now there could be lots of policy reasons that Treasury might decide
that it wanted this money to be in the banks," panel chairwoman
Elizabeth Warren said Friday morning on CBS. "But our question is the
one we put to Secretary Paulson, and that is, 'Are you putting it in
and getting back assets that are worth equivalent value?' He told us
yes; our independent investigation said no."

The misgivings come as new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is
preparing to place the Obama administration's imprint on the program
with a sweeping new framework for helping banks, loosening credit and
helping reduce foreclosures. Geithner plans to unveil the changes
Monday.

And while Paulson is gone and Geithner is in charge, the program
itself is still in the hands of Neel Kashkari, a holdover from the
Bush administration.

In December, Kashkari defended the Treasury purchasing strategy.

"We're not day traders, and we're not looking for a return tomorrow,"
he said. "Over time, we believe the taxpayers will be protected and
have a return on their investment."

In a bright spot for the rescue program, the same banks that received
capital infusions from Treasury have already paid $271 million in
dividends to the federal government and are expected to pay $1.5
billion more in dividends by the end of this month. Wells Fargo, which
received a $25 billion infusion, has already announced it would pay
Treasury $371 million in dividends this month.

The oversight panel examined 10 transactions, including eight made
under a capital purchase program designed to put liquidity into the
banks in hopes of easing credit. That money went to banks considered
"healthy" financially but in need of capital to make loans.

Two other transactions went to AIG and to Citigroup Inc. under
programs designed to help companies that were facing serious financial
difficulties.

Overall, the panel and the analysts it retained to conduct the
valuation study found that the Treasury used taxpayers' money to pay
$62.5 billion more than the value of assets in the 10 transactions it
examined. By extrapolating to the more than 300 institutions that
received money, the panel concluded that the government in effect paid
$78 billion more than the actual value of the assets at the time.

"Treasury chose to offer 'one size fits all' pricing in order to
encourage all institutions to participate, and in so doing disregarded
apparent differences in their financial condition," the report states.
"A consequence is that Treasury effectively offered weaker
participants greater subsidies than it offered to stronger
participants."

Reacting to the panel's conclusions, Treasury spokesman Isaac Baker
said in a statement: "Treasury's efforts since the fall prevented a
systemwide collapse, but more needs to be done to stabilize the
financial sector, increase lending and protect taxpayer dollars."

He said the plan that Geithner will announce on Monday aims to free up
credit, "while strengthening transparency and accountability measures
so that taxpayers know where and how their money is being spent and
whether it's achieving real results."

Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said the overpayment was
sure to "raise eyebrows."

"I can understand some gap," he said. "No one is expecting perfection
between the price you pay and what you think you're getting. But
that's a pretty large disparity."

___

On the Net:

February oversight report: http://cop.senate.gov/documents/cop-020609-report.pdf.

.

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