The federal government may be the next too-big-to-fail institution to accept federal bailout money.
The Obama administration, struggling to keep the federal budget deficit from spiraling out of control, could accept up to $210 billion in TARP funds in a bid to cut its debt. The government won’t take all of the remaining TARP kitty, which is growing as other recipients race to return their bailout money to get out from under the onerous thumb of the government, especially that nasty pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.
On the bright side, no one in government makes nearly enough to run afoul of pay restrictions, and the government never has to pay itself back.
“While we are not happy to have to contemplate this measure, the deficit is such that all options must be considered,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at today’s daily press briefing. “Programs like TARP have put us so deeply in debt that we may have no choice but to resort to TARP funds.”
White House Aims to Cut Deficit With TARP Cash [WSJ]
I love mocking the idocy of government as much as anyone else, but its effect is diluted when applied indiscriminantly to everything that gets proposed. This is at least not a terrible idea, and might actually be a good one
here’s Shaz’s bailout. one comment at a time.
No one in government may make enough to worry about a reduction but Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the others better ground those god damn planes or there is going to hell to pay.
I believe now an Ouroboros should rightly be printed on all USD
I don’t get how debt and deficit seems to be used interchangably? Is the government trying to pay down long term debt using it’s current fiscal deficit or is is just diminishing the current deficit. Either way, I can already envision the whitehouse spin with a press conference saying how they’re “doing their part” to get the US out of debt when they’ve really made 0 net difference.
scum, your all scum…wanna quick BJ??
-dennis kneale
Accoring to the article, the unused TARP funds are sitting idle. These funds are already counted as spent when computing the deficit and when determining the treasury auction calendar. If these statements are both true, what is wrong with this plan?
pay itself back? The government gets all of its money from us. It doesn’t generate wealth.
What you really mean is that the government is free to rob its citizenry with impunity. That’s a far more accurate statement.
BM gave us this idea. Its brilliant!
- TG and BHO
You are more likely to be raped while in prison if:
1. You are young.
2. You come from a middle-class background.
3. You are white.
4. You are not street smart or have no gang affiliations.
5. Physically you are of small stature.
http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/RapeInPrison.html
@8 STFU, we are creating millions of jobs, and we will also use innovative financings in order to reduce the deficit.
@5: The national debt will increase by the amount borrowed, and then the annual deficit will be reduced by the amount of the debt paid to reduce it. BHO will reduce the debt in the same way he will create jobs, by creative accounting.
Greg has been found
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/11120919111.html
This was a perfect place to use the “_______ who suck” tag
Great Idea…
Borrowing borrowed money you already borrowed so you can pay yourself.
Perpetual motion machines always work. That is, until they stop, and they always do.
The Guy from Delaware
So the country is in sever financial trouble, job loss is at 17% accounting for the people who just gave up or dont collect govt cheese.
This asshole BHO walks into office knowing the severity of the situation and he GOES AFTER MEDICAL INSURANCE COVERAGE?
He spends 8 months and countless $$$ figuring out how to use Medical Insurance to redistribute the wealth in this country. Now the FED is going bankrupt and he wants to use the STIM money that should have created jobs and he wants to pay the ever growing govt back? Pelosi flys around on private planes? BHO sends AF1 to NYC on a photo shoot? He flies to NYC for a date with his wife? who the fuck voted for this clown?
I cant wait for 2012…bye bye asshole!
@15,
The Yahoo Finance message board misses your passionate rhetoric.
Epic fail.
-Bitchtern
@16 oh sorry you prob like posts like GFYM and EAT MY DICK….well this ones for you!
-15
Nice job @ 15.
Your education from Yahoo finance and Fox news is working wonders. Your grasp of reality is admirable.
@TGFD This seems different than the Treasury printing money to buy bonds. If the linked article is correct, it would be like using excess cash (from a project that was completed under budget) to pay down debt.
As the article points out, if the money is not used to pay down debt, congress will likely spend it somewhere else “because it can.” I have to take sides with @1 and say that this seems like a good idea.
-@7
@19 so you watch Katie and Matt in the morning and get your eve news from GE (NBC) and John Stewart? Whats the new book on Oprah’s list?
Clearly you voted for this clown so please tell me how things are going? Fix my view of reality.
15 It’s people like you who make it hard for people like me to admit I’m a Republican.
@22 when did you admit you were a Republican? just now? It didnt seem that hard for you.
Explain why you are so upset my lil friend.
-15
@20: To the extent that the borrowed, unspent TARP funds would be used for silly highway signs and highway paving projects if not used for deficit reduction, I would agree, since I have a cynical view of govt. and Obama/Pelosi/Reid too.
However, to pretend (as Obama inevitably will) that this borrowed money in any way reduces the national debt is nonsense.
The federal government can do wonderful things with its cash accounting black box.
My Dearest Jon,
Brilliant! Brilliant I say. Posting a story about government waste (one of my better achievement by the way) is always a good idea when struggling to bring attention to yourself as a DealBreaker contributor. But, posting a picture of “our dear leader” pontificating in a brown suit no less is nothing short of genius. You are well on your way to a successful career. Continue our father belows good work.
Your Dearest Uncle,
Psh. Deficits don’t matter.
I love Obama, he gives us all money, he will save us from ourselves. Thank the lord for this man and his vision of a new America. An America that is friendly, happy and shiny. An America we can all believe in, where we all have a pony and the sun shines all day…
All you need to do is take a bite of this apple my pretty…
AND
please make all checks payable to ACORN and MOVEON.org
@24 As I said, congress asked for the money for a specific purpose. If that purpose no longer exists, then return the money. Why this seems like a foreign concept is the most troubling aspect of this story.
It seems strange (and I hope that I’m reading your post incorrectly) that you’d prefer the money not returned because certain politicians might be applauded for it. I would hope that politicians adopt the view that reducing our country’s debt is a good thing.
how does using STIM money to pay down our ever growing debt STIMULATE the economy?
how is this a novel idea to tax the American public to pay down the debt? Couldn’t this be done anytime? I thought the idea of the STIM $$$ was to put some energy back into the economy and create jobs? Just because BHO cannot come up with a good way to spend the money shouldn’t mean the money should be used to pay down debt.
Isn’t using this money to pay down debt the same as borrowing from Visa to pay your Amex bill and have your children pay the Visa bill?
We aren’t in disagreement.
What you say is what it really is: returning the unspent money. States do this every year at the end of their fiscal year.
It should not be viewed as lowering the deficit. Technically, of course, that will be true. What I am objecting to is how this will be portrayed, politically.
Obama will claim to have reduced the deficit by simply not using the borrowed TARP funds. Its just an intra-year transfer.
@29 TARP wasn’t a blank check (well mostly blank but not entirely blank). If congress wants money for roads, abortions, defense or otherwise; they should ask for it publicly. There were restrictions (sadly very few) put in TARP to restrict the money that goes out.
What happened to the days when Republicans were fiscally conservative?
@28 We aren’t in disagreement.
What you say is what it really is: returning the unspent money. States do this every year at the end of their fiscal year.
It should not be viewed as lowering the deficit. Technically, of course, that will be true. What I am objecting to is how this will be portrayed, politically.
Obama will claim to have reduced the deficit by simply not using the borrowed TARP funds. Its just an inter-year transfer.
29 Let me see if I can explain this to you in a different way (government terms). You had a need for some cash. So you borrowed from your Visa CC. You took borrowed funds and put the money on your right pants pocket. All of a sudden your original need for said borrowed funds is no longer. But, now there is a new and perhaps more pressing need for the original borrowed funds, so you take the cash out of your right pocket and move it to your left pocket – boom, Done! See?
@33 I think that your analogy would work in the case that you earned your income and if you ended up in a river because you never settled your gambling debts, noboby but you cared.
In this case, we’re talking about public (a little bit of my) money. A better analogy would be that of a recovering drug addict who was given $1,000 by his mother to pay for his methadone. Only when he got to the clinic, the bill was only $700. Now, should the mother trust her son to hold on to the $300 while he finds another good use for it? I think not. When Congress has another good plan to spend money (and it surely will), they can ask again.
How about this analogy? — Lets say next year’s deficit would be $1.3 trillion. If we issue $1.3 trillion in treasuries this year, and then use the funds next year for deficit reduction, is it really accurate to say that next year’s deficit is zero?
Technically, it would be true.
But I call that disingenuous. Obama will of course proclaim it to be a great accomplishment.
Obama = FAIL
pfluger, you’re beginning to switch the order of chronological events here. If the govt is counting the money in hand, then it must also already be counting it as borrowed.
Beyond that, maybe you can ask someone around your office to explain double entry accounting.
#15 is right, move on, nothing to see here. BHO is a joke. The 5,000-page pork-barrel healthcare bill that citizens can’t see is a joke. Pelosi & Co. all belong on a ledge somewhere. Let’s hope we can put it right in ’12.
@37:
I don’t think so. Of course the money in hand is counted as borrowed, as part of the national debt.
That borrowed money can then be used to lower the annual deficit, by booking the money as receipts in the year it is used.
Its the debt vs. deficit thing.
@39…your explanation is no different than carrying a balance on one credit card…and paying it off by transferring the balance to another credit card. You have borrowed to pay off an existing debt, you are still in debt, nothing has changed. you fail.
@40; No, your comprehension is apparently quite limited. CFA I would guess. That’s exactly what I’m saying, you fool.
@41, yes, CFA and MBA. Your mastery of the english language and business terminology is lacking. In the real world, this is known as “rolling your debt.” Read a book douche!
@33 understood except the money you borrowed from Visa was under certain pretenses. I dont see how paying down the debt is more pressing then creating much needed jobs and stimulating the economy.
Now you have the money so haha shame on Visa (us) for believing you. BHO is laughing his ass off at how he keeps selling us bullshit and we keep eating it.
@31 I agree. I think this STIM plan should have been in the form of tax brakes. This is shameful that BHO created the STIM plan and has done nothing with it. We have a shit med care plan, Job losses, iran farted on us and no one is helping us with Afghanistan. How have Obama’s policies helped anyone?
@42: MS in finance, douche.
You remind me of an idiot who got fired early in my career. He was extremely perplexed about how some people called an government audited fiancial report an audit, and others called it a CAFR.
I think he might be you. You can’t tell when someone is agreeing with you.
It is rolling your debt, and nothing has changed. That’s my point.
The CFA may have done some damage….
Tax breaks is right. But you can’t sell that to people who depend on the government for money and for the upper middle class self-loathing democrats. Robin Hood economics makes for a great story (and epic fail movie) but doesn’t work in real life.
oh and @43 is me 15. The Obama hating GOP/Jew from NYC who hates getting ass raped by nancy and Barney’s big private plane flying dick.
Pfluger, I think that being worried about Obama being viewed positively is a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
-@34/39-not @40
@47:
Look, if Obama has any accomplishments, I have no problem with him/them being viewed positively.
I don’t like how “rolling debt,” using borrowed money in one year to “reduce the deficit” in another year, whatever you want to call it, is being portrayed.
Its a lie. A falsehood.
@46…AGREE 100%. Is he going to invite the Fort Hood Shooter for a Beer and “Let cooler heads prevail?” Maybe he can invite all the unemployed to the White House for a keg party.
@49 oh yeah and is it nice that all those democrat (and 1 Rep) senators can vote for a healthcare plan for us
THAT NONE OF THEM EVEN HAVE TO USE!!!!! Like they are elected royalty.
I am so sick of this administration, the taxes, the bullshit hypocritical, limo liberal crap.
ENOUGH CHANGE OBAMA.
WE HAVE GIVEN YOU ENOUGH OF OUR CHANGE.
-15
BHO hasnt done anything that asnt started under GWB2. Why the anger from the BHO haters ??? chill out.
HealthCare is a good idea. – just not in its presetn form due to special interest that have hijacked it. The best thing would have been to extend Medicare eligibility. Simple and neat.