Columnist Will correct that initial TARP money did not buy toxic assets

.

Congress shoveled $700 billion into the Troubled Assets Relief Program, $325 billion of which has been spent without purchasing any toxic assets."

George Will on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 in a column published by the Washington Post and other news organizations.

The $325 billion cited by Will comes from the March 11 testimony by Neel Kashkari, the interim assistant secretary for financial stability who directs the TARP, before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

And at that point, none of the money had been spent on buying toxic assets, according to the Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan congressional research group, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an independent group tracking spending on TARP and other stimulus programs on its site Stimulus Watch.

We should note that since that testimony, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled his proposal for buying the toxic assets, which would be partly paid for by a portion of the TARP money. But that wasn't the case when Will's column was published, so we find his claim to be True.


READ MORE