Congress Lies To And Steals From Us

Of course we know about various ways congress has used their powers to take money from The People, in the process misrepresenting what they were doing with it. One of the most grievous and dastardly acts of lying and outright thievery is the TARP money repaid by those who borrowed it.

First, remember that the TARP money paid out was a LOAN. It was NOT some kind of gift. It was meant to be repaid assuming those borrowing it regained sufficient financial stability to do so. You know that MOST of the TARP money has, in fact, been repaid. The important question is what the treasury has the authority and responsibility to do with the money returned or with any 'profit' earned from those who borrowed it.

The text(!) of the TARP bailout legislation said what, by law(!), must be done with the money returned, including any profit from the interest on those loans:

Section 106 part D: "TRANSFER TO TREASURY.—Revenues of, and proceeds from the sale of troubled assets purchased under this Act, or from the sale, exercise, or surrender of warrants or senior debt instruments acquired under section 113 shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt."

NOTE that money received back SHALL be paid into the Treasury's general fund FOR THE REDUCTION OF THE PUBLIC DEBT!!!

Of course there was an escape clause elsewhere that they had up to five years to pay it back to the Treasury and that, in the meantime, the Secretary of The Treasury had authority at his(!) discretion to use returned money elsewhere. That escape clause has been used to justify turning the returned money into congress' own slush fund.

It's also a FACT that the TARP fund was set up so as NOT to add to the national debt. It should not have been counted as debt since it was created but Democrats have seen fit to count it that way. If they hang onto it in their personal slush fund, they can do whatever they want with it. Although Republicans have control of the House now and, therefore, spending and debt, the returned TARP money is NOT under their control ... it's under the control of the president's administration (ie, Sec'y of the Treasury Geitner).

NOT returning it to the Treasury has two important advantages for President Obama and the Democrats in general:

1. They have some $800 Billion 'extra' of OUR money to spend however they want and
2. They get to count it as Bush DEBT as long as they don't use it to pay that debt back down.

Of the $1.4 Trillion deficit created in Bush's last year, $800 Billion of it was this TARP money. That permits Democrats to demagogue Bush for $800 Billion of debt when it's not really debt at all, most of which is currently sitting in the hands of and under control of Democrats. Pretty cool, eh? If you're a Democrat!