The American Spectator

Neil M. Barofsky, the departing special inspector general for TARP I mentioned in my earlier post, has an op-ed in the New York Times today, in which he restates the downsides of the bailout:

The biggest banks are 20 percent larger than they were before the crisis and control a larger part of our economy than ever. They reasonably assume that the government will rescue them again, if necessary. Indeed, credit rating agencies incorporate future government bailouts into their assessments of the largest banks, exaggerating market distortions that provide them with an unfair advantage over smaller institutions, which continue to struggle.

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In the final analysis, it has been Treasury’s broken promises that have turned TARP - which was instrumental in saving the financial system at a relatively modest cost to taxpayers - into a program commonly viewed as little more than a giveaway to Wall Street executives.

It wasn’t meant to be that. Indeed, Treasury’s mismanagement of TARP and its disregard for TARP’s Main Street goals - whether born of incompetence, timidity in the face of a crisis or a mindset too closely aligned with the banks it was supposed to rein in - may have so damaged the credibility of the government as a whole that future policy makers may be politically unable to take the necessary steps to save the system the next time a crisis arises. This avoidable political reality might just be TARP’s most lasting, and unfortunate, legacy.