Is it true that TARP watchdog sees overall bailout program loss?”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s $700 billion bailout program will ultimately produce an overall loss for taxpayers, a key auditor for the program said on Thursday. The U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program will produce a “negative return” because some programs, such as $50 billion in housing subsidies, were not designed with any reasonable opportunity for a return to taxpayers, said Neil Barofsky, TARP’s special inspector general. Barofsky also told a forum sponsored by Bloomberg that he would audit the government’s role and influence as a major shareholder in a number of private companies that received aid, including the role it played in General Motors Co.’s GM.UL decision to scuttle an earlier deal to sell its Opel division in Europe.
UPDATE 1-TARP watchdog sees loss on U.S. bailout program Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:57pm EST (Adds Barofsky quotes, details on Treasury investments) WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s $700 billion bailout program will “almost certainly” result in an overall loss for taxpayers, a key auditor for the program said on Thursday. The U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program will produce a “negative return” because some programs, such as $50 billion in mortgage modification subsidies and incentives, were not designed with any reasonable opportunity for a return to taxpayers, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the program, know as TARP. “It’s almost certainly be a loss,” Barofsky told a forum sponsored by Bloomberg. Barofsky in a report to Congress in October said taxpayers were “extremely unlikely” to recover all of the bailout funds doled out by the Treasury. For example, he said, the more than $20 billion initial loans made to auto makers General Motors and Chr
