The U.S. Public Interest Group has been doing an admirable job of tracking the government’s failure to track what banks are doing with the billions in taxpayer dollars they’ve received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Today, they circulated a nice little chart showing the status of the many alleged efforts at transparency. It’s not encouraging. Here’s the running tally:
Hearings on or related to the Troubled Asset Relief Program: 24
TARP Special Inspector General reports received from banks: 364
Department of Treasury requests for lending data: 21
General Accounting Office reports urging more oversight: 11
TARP oversight bills pending Congressional action: 14
TARP oversight bills passed into law so far: 0
Comprehensive accountings made to public agencies or the public to date: 0
USPIRG observes that “Six months, $565 billion, 24 hearings and 364 reports later, the American taxpayers still don’t know where their money has gone.”
