What to Do with the TARP Money

According to TPM:

Republicans have spent the better part of two years distancing themselves from bailouts and hitting Democrats for supporting them. But given a choice between continuing the 2008 bank bailout and regulating Wall Street, several Republicans voted last night (and almost all of them will ultimately vote) to keep the bailout alive.

Last night, in a scramble to save the bill in the wake of Sen. Scott Brown's (R-MA) objections to the conference report, Democrats worked with moderate Republicans to figure out a new way to pay for Wall Street reform. What they came up with was pretty simple: end the TARP legislation (i.e., the much-maligned bank bailout) early. Every Republican negotiator on the conference committee objected, some vociferously.

Let's see. The Democrats want to end TARP early (so far so good) and use it to pay for a “reform” that was passed using Communist tactics (not so good). When Republicans object, that's regarded as hypocritical support for a bill they mostly didn't vote for in the first place.

Maybe we should end TARP early give the money back to the flipping taxpayers (ObSF: the “flipping navy” line in The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle).