I guess this is good news: Treasury Department revises TARP cost to be $200 billion less than the $700 billion allotted.
For a number of reasons I see this as good news. For one it means recovery is coming around. Yes, slowly, but it has started. Two, it means TARP has been semi-effective. It did ward off massive financial panics. It did stave off the entire collapse of the markets. And it has kept my stocks and mutual funds from totally bottoming out and even recently back to making me money. Some in Washington are now talking about using the $200 billion as a spur for job creation. Seeing how jobs are a must for any economy much less one with record unemployment, I think the next phase of the recovery must be in this direction. Something tells me, however, Republicans will pretend they are the true fiscal stewards and will have different plans consistent with their 18th century thinking.
*Update:
Not only is the GOP controlled by radical 18th century thinking, they are, as I've been documenting on The Fold, suffering from a very bad case of self-inflicted dementia. Sen. Orrin Hatch, whom I've written about quite a bit these last few weeks, still can't bring himself to recall the last 8 years of Republican rule. Not only has he entirely forgotten history that he helped make, he also insists the best way to achieve full recovery is to "get control back in Republican hands." Most telling this time, though, is here again,-- for the hundredth time-- an elected Republican says Democrats are trying to" socialize the country."
Such language from the minority party is so extreme and so uncommon in American history that even during the last 8 years of Republican rule, a time when those in charge were responsible for the largest growth of government since the 1930s, that also oversaw the largest fiscal irresponsibility in history, led during the largest drop in median household income since records have been kept, created a 26.1% increase in Americans living in poverty, and ruled over the largest drop in the history of the Dow, that not one time did a member of the opposition party ever call the Republican president a socialist, a tyrant or ever alluded to him being an enemy of the state. Sure George Bush was unpopular as any person could ever be, but never did the opposition let its crazy, fringe wing control the day.
Now, not only do the crazies control the GOP with elected officials saying and behaving in ways not seen since the Civil War, they also yearn for the days when they were in charge and were responsible for the very problems we have today. Wheee!
