TARP, payoffs, and who you know

This figures, you didn’t really expect our government to be responsible with these bailouts or are tax dollars did you?

Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn’t look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department’s bank bailout fund last fall. 

The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives’ use.

Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Frank, by his own account, wrote into the TARP bill a provision specifically aimed at helping this particular home-state bank. And later, he acknowledges, he spoke to regulators urging that OneUnited be considered for a cash injection.

H/T to Ed Morrissey who calls TARP for what is, faster, meatier pork!

Show of hands for who’s surprised by this.  TARP actually works better than pork; it gets more dollars to the politically connected and gets the money there faster.  Nor is this limited to Democrats, although Frank’s support of OneUnited despite their failure to qualify might be the most egregious example.  Alabama has received $3.7 billion in TARP funds for four of its lenders, and state banking officials credit their two Republican Congressmen for getting them their share.

Yep America, we are going to get another royal porking from our “leaders”.

TARP TARP TARP

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