TARP Paybacks

[melm00se]

With the payback of TARP funds by Citibank ($20B), Bnk of America ($45B) and Wells Fargo ($25B) totaling $90B.

what should the federal government do with that money?

Spend it?
Pay down debt?
Rainy day fund?
Something else?

[TwixVoy]

1. I don't think you understand federal finances....

The national "credit card" as it were is running a multi-trillion dollar deficit.

What you are asking is as ridiculous as a person who is $50,000 in credit card debt getting a $2000 tax refund and then asking "What should I spend this extra money on?".

[FBaggins]

3. Worse than that

It's closer to "a person with a $50,000 credit card debt returns an item to the store that cost him $2,000. When the store begins to credit his Visa card he says 'don't bother... I'll just go look for something else to buy' "

[melm00se]

5. but

it is not realistic to attempt to pay off all your debt in one fell swoop. you start on a $50k debt by making a $2K payment.

Shouldn't this money go back from whence it came? dropping slightly more than 10% of the total TARP budget back in as a "principle" payment (as it were) would be a 1st good step on the path to "tame (our) debt" (http://www.cnbc.com/id/34421446)

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. I think a more apt analogy would be

$50,000 in debt and a $200 refund...

sP

[AngryAmish]

2. Porn and blow, porn and blow

[optimator]

4. its not free money

it was borrowed at interest.

[Igel]

7. It strikes me that when TARP was authorized

Congress had something to say about it.

Reimbursements go into revolving fund to continue to buy toxic assets, help reduce mortgage foreclosures, etc. With a fairly short list for "etc."

One of them is to return the money and any interest/dividends/capital gains to Treasury.

"Spend it" is okay, if it's for something on the list (and the 'spend it' options were precious few). "Rainy day fund" if it's on the list (again, if that means "buy assets" or "make loans", probably okay--otherwise it's a short list).

I liked the list. It was reasonable. It was intelligent.

It was the bill of goods we were promised and, reluctantly, bought. Let's have Congress keep its word and Obama execute the law--not in the sense of putting a bullet through its head.

[Yupster]

8. I didn't think they had a choice

I thought the opriginal law said they'd use the money they get back to reduce the debt. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Weren't they saying at the time it was done that the TARP had a real possibility of actually making the government some money when it was paid back with interest? I didn't believe it would be paid back this fast or at all for that matter.