Where Did Taxpayer Money Go? Panel Slams Treasury

Jan. 9, 2009 — -- A scathing new report by a congressional watchdog panel blames the Treasury Department for failing to track how banks are spending taxpayer money provided through the government's $700 billion financial rescue package, also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The panel, which has been charged with overseeing TARP and is led by Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, said in its report that it "still does not know what the banks are doing with taxpayer money."

By investing in banks that have refused "to provide any accounting of how they are using taxpayer money," the Treasury Department has "eroded" public confidence, the report stated.

The panel also asked whether the Treasury Department, which has allocated more than $350 billion from the rescue package so far, failed to comply with Congress' instructions to tackle the country's foreclosure crisis.

The department took "no steps to use any of [the $700 billion rescue package] to alleviate the foreclosure crisis," and that "raises questions about whether Treasury has complied with Congress' intent that Treasury develop a 'plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners,'" the report said.

"I'll be perfectly blunt with you, I'm shocked that we have to ask these questions, but what I will say is I'm not giving up on this," Warren told Chris Cuomo in an exclusive interview today on "Good Morning America."

But Warren added that it falls to Congress to "take a very hard look" at whether the Treasury Department has too much discretion in spending TARP funds.

"Ultimately [I] don't have a badge, don't have a gun," she said. "It's up to Congress [to decide] what they're going to do about making more requirements in how Treasury uses this money."

The good news, Warren said, "is that these questions have gotten a lot of attention and a lot of people are demanding answers and when a lot of people start to demand answers, things start to change."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson today defended the TARP program while acknowledging that challenges remain.