TARP Moves Forward With Promises, Not Guarantees, of Improvements

Membership ticker

Right now is no time to come up short.

It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where the Big Lie is called a Big Lie, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we urgently need to raise about 400,000 by Thursday, June 30, to finish our fiscal year on track and give it everything we possibly can. Please help us get there with a donation if you can right now.

$1,150,000

$1,350,000

Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

Facts matter: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. Support our nonprofit reporting. Subscribe to our print magazine.

So it’s confirmed. Chris Dodd, head of the Senate Banking Committee, will do nothing to ensure that there are oversight and executive compensation provisions in the second half of the TARP rollout. He will not legislate in aid for families in foreclosure, either.

The reason? Larry Summers, writing on behalf of the President-elect, wrote him a letter assuring him that the executive branch could and would police itself. Don’t worry, Chris, we got this! As I pointed out before, Dodd is an awfully credulous fellow. Hank Paulson convinced him of the exact same thing. How’d that turn out?

Will Obama and company will do a better job than Paulson? Probably. Should Dodd and the Senate Democrats assume that they can take a hands-off approach to things like TARP because the man in the Oval Office is from their party? Absolutely not.