It certainly looks like Congressional TARP Oversight Watchdog Elizabeth Warren is heading for a showdown over the next couple of days with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner with regard to his handling of the TARP Program to date.
Daily Kos diarist BigChin posted a great diary here about all of this, approximately 24 hours ago, entitled, Elizabeth Warren, Watchdog, Says Sack the CEO's. The focus in BigChin's diary was with regard to the comments provided by Ms. Warren concering the proposed sacking of a handful of CEO's associated with some of our country's largest bailout recipients. Essentially, it was a recap (but with great, detailed background) on the following story, which pretty much speaks for itself: "US watchdog calls for bank executives to be sacked." There appears to be a clearly defined story here, and it's the reality that all of this may very well be setting the stage for a showdown between the two over the next couple of days, since we're more or less told this, outright, within in the following piece:
US watchdog calls for bank executives to be sacked
James Doran in New York
The Observer, Sunday 5 April 2009
Elizabeth Warren, chief watchdog of America's $700bn (£472bn) bank bailout plan, will this week call for the removal of top executives from Citigroup, AIG and other institutions that have received government funds in a damning report that will question the administration's approach to saving the financial system from collapse.
Warren, a Harvard law professor and chair of the congressional oversight committee monitoring the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), is also set to call for shareholders in those institutions to be "wiped out"...
...Warren also believes there are "dangers inherent" in the approach taken by treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who she says has offered "open-ended subsidies" to some of the world's biggest financial institutions without adequately weighing potential pitfalls. "We want to ensure that the treasury gives the public an alternative approach," she said, adding that she was worried that banks would not recover while they were being fed subsidies. "When are they going to say, enough?" she said...
...She said she did not want to be too hard on Geithner but that he must address the issues in the report. "The very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding changes in management is preposterous."
Warren ever so slightly tempers her comments about Geithner, but a quick look at her public comments on this matter, up until now, indicates there's significant animosity between the two.
As BigChin reminds us, Warren serves under the auspices of Congress, and without much real power. But, she is the go-to person responsible for oversight of the TARP program in that legislative body, nonetheless.
Here's some more from Warren and others on this matter...
Since day one, there's been virtually no oversight cooperation from the Treasury Department with regard to the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program ("TARP"). Unless you've been living in a cave, this is quickly escalating from its originally-budgeted $700 billion to what will certainly be breaking the $2 or $3 trillion mark this year.
Hardly one damn spec of oversight enabled on this massive program, whatsoever?
Then there was this piece from HuffPo, from a little over three weeks ago: "TARP Oversight Panel Says It's Been Ignored By Geithner And Paulson."
Oversight Panel Says It's Been Ignored By Geithner And Paulson
Congress Daily | By Bob Kemper | 03/11/09
The Congressional Oversight Panel, the group charged with overseeing how the federal government allocates $700 billion to prop up the nation's financial institutions, supports greater public disclosure of how the program is working, but the panel itself often can't get the information it needs to do its job, members said today. Damon Silvers, the oversight panel's deputy chairman, told the Joint Economic Committee that he and other panel members are waiting for Treasury Secretary Geithner to appear before them to explain how the Obama administration plans to help failing banks. Among the things the panel still needs to know is how the administration plans to deal with the toxic assets like failed loans and foreclosures that are bogging down banks, panel members said.
The oversight panel had asked Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary in the Bush administration and the chief architect of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for the same information but never heard back from him, Silvers said. The bottom line, panel members said, is that even though about $300 billion has been spent and another $350 billion has been made available to bail out financial institutions, those who are supposed to be overseeing the program lack the information they need to perform their duties, Silvers said...
With the widely-viewed Scott Pelley piece from 60 Minutes on Sunday, and now this, it sure looks like the crap's about to hit the fan for Tim & Company over the next few days. I can practically see the congresscritters lining up for their soundbites on this one already.