Former President George W. Bush told Bill O’Reilly tonight that, for the record, most of the TARP money loaned under his watch has been repaid.
He’s correct, of course. The money loaned to banks back in September 2008 was repaid the treasury.
More… Tom wrote in with this:
The reason that TARP was repaid so fast is because large banks that didn’t want it or need it provided cover for those that did and then paid it back ASAP! Reminds me of when a sibling needs a loan or money and you receive money from your parents too.
Banks like US Bancorp (US Bank), who I have worked for over 10 years, did not need nor want TARP but because it was one of the ten largest banks in America (#6) it was forced to take TARP. Richard Davis our wonderful CEO along with all the top ten bank CEOs where drug to the White House by the Obama Regime and were told by then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to take it or else risk bad publicity. The Obama Regime knew that they along with The Lap Dog Media would skewer any bank that refuse to comply.
US Bank after taking the money immediately asked to repay it. They were told there was no set criteria and they would have to wait until there was. Because the cost was unknown US Bank’s CEO told all the Department VPs that they needed to reduce costs by 5% to build a war chest to basically fight the Federal Government.
Some departments laid off people. Fortunately my department along with others decided to reduce our pay 5% and give us two weeks unpaid vacation to compensate. US Bank passed as the number one bank. We immediately had our pay restored AND those of us who had not taken off all or any portion of the two weeks unpaid vacation were allowed to take it anyway.
During this time our stock went from around $25,share to $8.50/share it has recovered to around $21/share. Also during this time frame a local financial writer lumped us with Bank of America and Citigroup as a “bailed-out” bank. I called that reporter and he agreed that US Bank was not a bailed-out bank all the while arguing that we took TARP money. I often said that there are no degrees of punishment in hell but I am convinced their is a Press Room!
