US Senate Votes Down Measure Seeking To End TARP

[notesdev]

Source: NASDAQ

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Senate narrowly voted to defeat a proposal to immediately end the Treasury's financial market rescue plan as several moderate Democrats sided with the Republican minority in favor of the measure.

The proposal would have sought to wind down the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and require the Treasury to use any unspent funds to pay down the burgeoning federal government budget deficit.

The Senate vote was 53-45, a majority in favor of ending the TARP, but short of the 60 votes required to carry the vote.

Democratic leadership opposed the amendment because they felt it would have handcuffed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in his efforts to ensure the stability of the financial markets.

...



Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201001211620dowjonesdjonline000682&title=us-senate-votes-down-measure-seeking-to-end-tarp

---

Why the hell are Democrats voting to sustain the bailouts? How can they be so clueless? Every last one of them is risking his seat over this.

[rudy23]

1. Maybe it has something to do with today's Supreme Court ruling. nt

[pattmarty]

3. Bingo!!!! Show me the fucking money!!!!!

[CoffeeCat]

2. America wants to end the bailouts...

What in the hell are we doing?????

:mad:

[SnakeEyes]

4. I can't believe..

that it's the Democrats voting against it and Republicans are for it. I just don't get it.

[sandnsea]

5. What is it about an economic wasteland

that so many people just cannot comprehend.

Nobody has explained to me what they think would happen if we let all these banks collapse.

[KansDem]

6. I agree

Nobody has explained to me what they think would happen if we let all these banks collapse.

I'd like to know, too!

[notesdev]

8. Other healthier banks

step in to take their business.

The world isn't going to collapse if Citibank and Bank of America do.

We need banks, yes - but we don't need these banks.

[sandnsea]

14. What healthier banks?

There weren't any. Thus, the whole "too big to fail" problem.

[notesdev]

15. There are plenty

There are a lot more banks in this world than just the behemoths.

[sandnsea]

16. Name them

What banks were going to step in and save the US economy when all of our investment banks were gone, and all the insurance companies that insured them, and then all of the banks they had their money in, and on down the line.

[notesdev]

17. I have two in my neighborhood alone

TD Bank and President's Bank, neither one took a dime of TARP money, both are solid. That's just in my immediate neighborhood, I can walk to both of them.

And if we need more than what we have? It will be cheaper by a HUGE margin to create brand new banks and capitalize them out the wazoo than to continue bailing out the black hole of the existing TBTF banks.

And it won't involve giving huge bonuses to the people who trashed our economy, either.

[sandnsea]

19. Your neighborhood bank is going to replace Wachovia?

Washington Mutual? Really?

When a neighborhood bank goes under, losses can be in the hundreds of millions and sometimes a couple of billion.

WaMu had $300 billion in loans alone.

[notesdev]

20. Two things

#1, a major reason the TBTF banks had so much dollar volume in loans on their books is because they were making loans left and right that never should have been made, and promptly blew up in our faces.

#2, the kinds of numbers you are talking about are small compared to the amount of money we have thrown down their rat holes of bad debt. We could have created entirely new banks with no liabilities with that money, and let the failures fail. And we would not be permitting the executives of these failed banks to loot the Treasury in the process.

Force mark-to-market, let the new banks buy the loans off the failed banks and market price and liquidate the failed ones, the problem is over, solved, done.

Instead the problem is not solved at all and is arguably worse than before we started the bailouts, and we're out trillions of dollars!

[sandnsea]

21. With what money?

Where is your neighborhood bank going to get a few trillion dollars to buy the loans, cover the accounts, cover the investments, cover the credit default swaps, etc etc.

[notesdev]

22. How about the bailout money that turned into banker bonuses?

You could recreate a bank the size of WaMu out of that alone. All that money - taxpayer money, OUR money - is now in private hands, the same hands dripping with the blood of the economy they murdered.

[zazen]

7. the banks will collapse if Repubs end TARP, but Dems will get blamed for it

They'll collapse, and the economy with it, because other structures aren't in place to shore us up. The economy will collapse because Reagan and his greedy compatriots began this deregulatory looting spree in the first place.

But Dems will be blamed for all the economic ills.

If Repubs were in charge, there's no way in hell they'd vote to end TARP.

As is, they look good either way.

Rahm needs to get on the side of the people and become OUR sonofabitch.

[Demeter]

10. I Rather Think There Would Be a Ticker Tape Parade

with Democrats carried on the shoulders of grateful ex-bank customers...

[zazen]

11. Demeter, I _want_ to believe you. I hope I'm wrong. n/t

[Unvanguard]

13. That's exactly right. Let's remember that the original bailouts were done under Bush. n/t

[Po_d Mainiac]

9. Turbo needs TARP to use as a slush fund

to supply the hush money regarding his prior knowledge of the AIG deal he wasn't privy too. :grr:

[rgbecker]

12. You can tell the ones who still have work. Who needs banks? They ask.

So what if the banks belly up...As long someone cashes my paycheck I'm all set....Direct deposit, credit cards, no problem....economy will get along fine without any of that...I'll have my cash, go next door to my farming neighbor...No problem, Banks? Who needs em?

If you think 10 % unemployment is bad, just wait. You think its hard to get a loan now? You think the bank is closing down on your credit card? Try it with banks with no capital.

[defendandprotect]

18. And no re-regulation of capitalism to prevent this again -- Glass-Steagall!!!

And Sen. Byron Dorgan who was going to present legislation to reinstate

Glass-Steagall has been stomped on by Democratic Leadership -- Harry Reid --

re "negotiation" on drug prices!!!

Disgusting -- really disgusting -- !!!

[Blandocyte]

23. We need TARP.

Christ, hasn't the minority party gotten enuf victories lately?

[jpak]

24. Like it or not, TARP and the Recovery Act saves us from a Great Depression

yup