Unwarranted secrecy regarding the largest disbursement of public funds in U.S. history continues in the executive branch. So Congress should finally exercise its oversight authority and find out where every last bailout dollar has been spent. Three major news organizations – Bloomberg News, Fox Business News, and The New York Times - had to file lawsuits against the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board after they were refused bailout documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). All three were stiffed by an administration that failed to deliver on a promise of more government transparency and accountability. In response to its lawsuit seeking compensation agreements between the government and two of the largest bailout recipients, Fox finally received 10,096 pages of heavily redacted documents from Treasury showing that "virtually all the details of the bailout were worked out among a handful of lawyers." Good. Congress just needs a handful of subpoenas to get to the bottom of it.Reminder:All three news organizations still have FOIA lawsuits pending against the Fed. The Times suit, filed March 23, seeks documents concerning the Fed's decision to invoke emergency powers under the Federal Reserve Act in relation to the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the $787 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The paper also wants copies of all contracts with institutions that qualified for mind-boggling amounts of federal dollars in order to determine whether taxpayers were adequately protected.The Sunlight Foundation received four names in response to its FOIA request seeking the identity of senior Treasury officials who are also members of the TARP Investment Committee – a small group that makes big decisions about which banks get how much of our money. The Government Accountability Office has already criticized them for not being sufficiently transparent in disbursing almost half of the TARP funds. Which is why Secretary Timothy Geithner and the small group of Treasury officials involved should be summoned to Capitol Hill, put under oath, and forced to tell the American people the truth - including a clear explanation of why banks that didn't want TARP funds were forced to accept them, and why some banks are not allowed to give TARP money back.
Is this the hope-n-change you voted for?"They sent us here to usher in a new era of responsibility in Washington -- to start living within our means again, and being straight with them about where their tax dollars are going, and empowering them with the information they need to hold all of us, their representatives, accountable."
There's my two cents.
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