Mary Jo Kilroy’s Committee Assignment Puts Her in Center of Economic Recovery Efforts

Freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy has gotten a seat on the high profile House Committee on Financial Services chaired by Massachussetts Rep. Barney Frank.

Frank’s committee has taken center stage in combating the U.S. financial crisis.  The much and rightfully maligned Troubled Assets Relief Program, aka, $700 billion bailout, originated in Financial Services.  Frank also pushed for a bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but Senate Republicans killed that effort until the Bush Administration stepped in with $17 billion for GM and Chrysler late last month.

Kilroy and her fellow Congressional Democrats will be in a unique position very soon after President-elect Barack Obama takes office in a couple of weeks.  The original bailout bill called for $350 billion of the $700 billion total to be disbursed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.  Paulson has been roundly criticized for the money not serving the purpose for which Congress intended – unlocking frozen capital markets.  The Government Accountability Office and an oversight arm of the committee which Kilroy now serves found several problems with how the money has been disbursed, chief among them accountability.  Bailout dollars have been used to pay out executive bonuses, sit as cash holdings and used by some banks to acquire others.

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Where Is All the Bailout Money Going? Banks Aren’t Telling …

The other day the Associated Press asked 21 banks who took in billions in U.S. taxpayer provided federal bailout money four questions:

1. How much of the money take has been spent?
2. What was it spent on?
3. How much is being held in savings?
4. What’s the plan for the rest.

Silence.  Here’s hoping that the New Year brings a Congress and Adminstration willing to force some transparency out of these corporate welfare cases and hold them accountable for real results and sound business practices.  In the meantime, we’ve got Cramer:

Jim Cramer Goes Ballistic on Bailed Out Banks

$700 Billion Bailout: How About Some Congressional Oversight of Congressional Oversight?

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services released the following report today on oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP.  The real world knows the TARP as the “$700 billion bailout” of Wall Street, Banks, Insurers and other financial serivces companies.

The report is built around ten questions pictured here in a screen grab from the report:

I’d like to add an eleventh question: WTF is Congress doing, other than talking?  We’ve known for weeks that TARP funds have been used in mergers and acquisitions and there have been reports that some institutions accepting TARP funds are still paying out those huge bonuses.  I can guarantee that several of the TARP funded institutions have private jets, even if they are only timeshares.

Congress rushed to judgement on this along with the Bush Administration.  I’m looking for someone to do the report on Congressional Oversight of Congressional Oversight.  Taxpayers demand more than questions and navel gazing on this issue.

Voters?

Text: Report by Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP – $700 Billion Bailout

(Source: House Financial Services Committee)

Click Here for PDF of Report

Text: Henry Paulson Testimony before House Financial Services Committee | November 18, 2008

(Source: U.S. Treasury Department)

Click this link for PDF of Sec. Paulson’s Testimony

Text: Ben Bernanke Testimony to House Financial Services Committee | November 18, 2008

Click this link for PDF of Chairman Bernanke’s testimony.