Exit Strategy or Entrance Strategy? New TARP Program On the Way

James Gattuso / October 07, 2009

One year and a week after Congress enacted legislation creating the $700 billion “Troubled Asset Relief Program,” the Treasury Department next week is expected to launch its first initiative to buy, well, troubled assets. Odd as it may be, in the year since its creation TARP has been used for just about everything but the original purpose of buying troubled, or “toxic,” mortgages and other securities from financial institutions.

Now comes word that a long-planned Treasury program to acquire assets will be ready to begin. That’s bad news. Not only is the program flawed, but the emergency that spawned it is over. TARP should be ended, not further implemented.
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