Commentary

TARP Oversight Panel Under Fire

The Troubled Asset Relief Program’s (TARP) Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) is under some serious fire (USSF) from the pundit community:

  • Forbes (Tom Cooley)–“The COP, however, apparently decided that its mission was too narrowly defined. It didn’t need to do more evaluation of what the Treasury was doing with the TARP funds. Instead, it should hold forth on how financial crises at large should be addressed.”
  • Volokh Conspiracy (Todd Zywicki)–“I’m not sure that anyone knowledgeable is surprised by what has happened. The panel has been a mess since the very beginning in December 2008 when COP member Congressman Jeb Hensarling received the panel’s first report 8 minutes before it was published and refused to sign it.”
  • The Atlantic (Megan McArdle)–“Rather than tracking the expenditure of the funds, she’s (Elizabeth Warren, head of TARP COP) increasingly using the oversight board to push her own ideas about what should be done with the banks. This is wildly inappropriate.”