AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Treasury Now Eager for Banks to Repay TARP Funds Quickly, Report Says
10/19/2009 By: Darrell Delamaide

In a reversal of roles, the Treasury Department is now eager to get its bailout money back and banks are reluctant to part with it.

When the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds were first being doled out, many banks didn’t want to accept the money because it made them appear weak, but Treasury was keen that they take it and hold on to it for a while to restore the public’s confidence in the banking system.

Now, the New York Times reported, Treasury officials have concluded that some of the nation’s biggest banks are in good enough shape to raise capital from private investors, and the administration would like more of them to repay the billions of dollars in bailout funds.

But the banks now see it as advantageous to stick to Treasury’s original plan of repaying the funds over time out of earnings, rather than dilute existing stockholders by going to the market for fresh capital.

The Times said it is ultimately up to the banks’ regulators, and these agencies continue to be concerned about huge potential losses tied to commercial real estate, home mortgages, and defaults on credit cards.

Treasury officials don’t want banks to reduce their capital buffers, but to the extent they are in a position to replace taxpayer money with funds raised through private capital markets, that would be viewed more positively by investors.

The administration also faces a December 31 deadline to decide whether to extend the $700 billion financial rescue program for an additional year, and that would be easier politically if more banks had repaid the funds, the Times said.

Previously rebutted in that you don't seem to understand that the 2009 budget was passed under Bush.

don't need to see you hare-brained interpretations of Congressional Acts (Mr. Obama can do none of this--the Congress has to pass these bills The President has to sign or veto these bills. If the president vetos a bill, then only if the Congress overrides a President's veto is the Congress solely responsible for the passage of the bill.) and the constitution again. I know what sort of twisted fantasy world you live in. In othr words, you cannot tolerate the fact that I interpret the Constitution differently than you do.

You don't piss and moan about transfers of wealth when it's going to defense contractors, or private contractors like Halliburton, Bechtell and Blackwater who get sweetheart contracts to operate in Iraq.I have repeatedly posted that I am opposed to the transfer of wealth from those people who lawfully earned it, to those people who did not lawfully earn it. Wealth going to defense contractors, or private contractors like Halliburton, Bechtell and Blackwater who get sweetheart contracts to operate in Iraq is lawfully earned. I don't see you whining about the transfer of wealth to operate the Federal prison system (by the far the largest single item in any budget), even though no such prison system is authorized by the constitution.The federal prison system is implicitly authorized by the Constitution in several of the "To" clauses in Article I, Section 8; in Article III, Section 2; and in Amendments V, VI, VIII, XIII, and XIV Section 1. I don't see you pissing and moaning about WHAT being transferred to the BLM to maintain Federal lands which are then leased to private individuals and corporations to graze livestock at laughable lease rates, which allows the WHAT to operate economies of scale which put family farmers out of business. Low lease rates for lands used to graze livestock puts family farmers out of business??? Can't family farmers use the same lands to graze their live stock??? Of course family farmers can!!!

You only piss and moan about the government appropriating funds for things which you don't like. You don't complain about things of which you approve, and you don't look very closely at everything the government does spend its money on. I am opposed to AND DO NOT LIKE the federal government appropriating funds to finance unconstitutional activities.

None of that matters, really, though, since your entire thesis is predicated upon a bone-head and fantastical interpretation of the constitution, which no gneuine student of the document and the history of legislation in this country would take seriously. A great many genuine students of the Constitution and its Amendments advocate the same thesis I do. For example, James Madison, Clarence Thomas, and Walter Williams, among many others, advocate the same thesis I do

ican hardly ever understands what he's talking about. TARP is not the transfer of private property.

The $3 trillion Bush's proposes spending in 2009 would be the first time that milestone has been reached. Bush also presided over the first budget to hit $2 trillion, in 2002. It took the government nearly 200 years to reach the first $1 trillion budget, which occurred in 1987 during the Reagan administration.

As in past years, Bush's biggest proposed increases are in national security. Defense spending is projected to rise by about 7 percent to $515 billion and homeland security money by almost 11 percent, with a big gain for border security. Details on the budget were obtained through interviews with administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity until the budget's release.

The bulk of government programs for which Congress sets annual spending levels would remain essentially frozen at current levels. The president does shower extra money on some favored programs in education and to bolster inspections of imported food.

Bush's spending proposal would achieve sizable savings by slowing the growth in the major health programs " Medicare for retirees and Medicaid for the poor. There the president will be asking for almost $200 billion in cuts over five years, about three times the savings he proposed last year.

There is no indication Congress is more inclined to go along with this year's bigger cuts; savings would come by freezing payment rates for most health-care providers for three years.

You could just ignore him (actually use the ignore feature).

No need to call him a clown. If he is being one; I highly doubt that anyone needs you to point it out as it's probably painfully obvious (if I remember correctly).

All you're actually accomplishing is calling him names. Which is something I would expect more from children, as opposed to intelligent adults.

parados wrote:

Previously rebutted in that you don't seem to understand that the 2009 budget was passed under Bush.

When the truth is inconvenient it's simpler to fabricate your own.

The President's Budget

If a President signs a budget bill, then that budget bill is both the President's and Congress's budget bill.

When any wealth REDistributionist calls me a name, I interpret it as an admission they cannot rationally rebut what I have posted. So it's ok with me if all you wealth REDistributionists continue calling me names.