Oversight anyone?

Drudge is leading with a WashPost article this morning that notes Congress has taken no action yet to “fill the independent oversight posts established…when it approved the [$700 billion "Troubled Asset Relief Program"]….Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.”

Maybe now that the Dems have the White House, and the bailout is all theirs to deal with, they aren’t going to want the oversight they fought for?  I doubt that.  President Bush hasn’t even nominated anyone yet, so which party is at fault here?  Probably these folks are just taking their eye off the ball.

Barney Frank explains that all are less worried about conflicts of interest in the TARP now that the TARP isn’t a TARP anymore.  The first injections of cash weren’t to buy troubled assets, they were to make equity injections in banks.  And yesterday Paulson announced that none of the rest would be used to buy troubled assets either.  So the TARP isn’t a TARP anymore:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said his concerns about oversight diminished after the Treasury program’s focus shifted from purchases of financial firms’ troubled assets to capital injections into companies. “The concern was they’d be buying assets and we wouldn’t know the price,” Frank said. The revised bailout program “doesn’t have the conflicts of interest and the other things people were concerned about.”

I don’t care what’s being done with the cash.  Someone needs to protect taxpayers’ interests here.  Could this be an opening for Republicans to redefine themselves as taxpayer advocates holding back the avalanche of bailout money?  We’ll see.

But Bloomberg is reporting that House Republican Leader Boehner is supporting their Freedom of Information fight to force Fed disclosure of loan recipients and the collateral being accepted:

The Fed “should comply with this Freedom of Information Act request, and in the interest of full and fair disclosure, they must begin providing lawmakers and taxpayers all information about how they are using federal tax dollars,” Boehner said.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, there is little disclosure about how the programs are being implemented.

I’m not a fan of Boehner.  I think he helped lead the Republicans into the big government wilderness.  A good alternative as House Republican leader would be Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who recently published this statement regarding the future of the Republican party.

We need to be honest about the root causes of our current financial crisis: loose money, crony capitalism and a lack of market transparency and information. We need to adopt a policy of sound money by requiring the Federal Reserve to focus exclusively on keeping inflation in check, as I’ve proposed with my Price Stability Act. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose excesses helped lead to the current mess, must be taken off the backs of taxpayers. We need a complete overhaul of our outdated financial regulatory system to emphasize market transparency and accountability.

The greatest threat to our nation’s future prosperity is the explosion of entitlement spending. Our entitlement programs are headed for a painful collapse that will bankrupt this nation and leave our children with an inferior standard of living. If we don’t tackle these problems, they will tackle us.

Amen.

Posted in Fed, bailout, banking, government spending, politics, taxpayer issues |