Financial Bailout Oversight & Transparency – Failure

Story from CNN Money covers testimony from the special inspector overseeing the TARP program, i.e. the financial bailout (HT Brian Ellis):

Barofsky said his top concern was that Treasury continues to ignore his suggestion that TARP bailout recipients detail exactly how they’re using their money. He said that two banks, Bank of America and Citigroup, have made efforts toward such disclosure, but “otherwise it hasn’t come to pass.”

Further, Barofsky said, when Treasury released more bailout money to troubled insurer American International Group this month, neither the company nor the government would say what it would be spent on. …

The report, which was released on Monday, offered a close inside look at the government’s handling of the bailout. It revealed that Barofsky’s office had 20 criminal investigations and six audits into whether tax dollars are being pilfered or wasted.

And some still wonder why the million or so Americans who gather in “tea parties” are mad at they way government is spending their money.