Well, this is good news on top of the other good news we got today:
"President Obama is likely to endorse using a portion of the government's $700 billion financial bailout for a new jobs creation program during a speech about the economy next week, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Friday morning."
"The president thinks we should and must do everything in our power to create an environment for job growth and job creation," Gibbs said. When asked whether Obama will talk about the use of TARP funds on Tuesday, Gibbs said, "I think that's likely."
As many conservative and centrist Democratic members of Congress probably don't have the intelligence or fortitude to ask for very much if anything at all, and given they are probably not in any hurry to do so (as indicated by their overall lack of enthusiasm for spending any more money to help those out of work), using TARP funds would be the easiest and fastest way to pump funds into creating jobs. As for exactly how much is left in TARP:
About $139 billion of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, remains unallocated and available to the administration. Banks have paid another $10 billion in interest and dividends to the Treasury and returned about $71 billion in aid, the Treasury reported in November. This week, Bank of America announced it would repay its $45 billion package.
In light of discouraging statements by Pres. Obama and other administration officials in recent days about reducing the deficit and limited resources we have available to spur job creation, all of which hinted that the administration was not planning on doing much more on the jobs front, this news about using remaining TARP money is a good sign that perhaps the administration is beginning to get the fact that deficit reduction isn't possible without creating more jobs.
What is also good news is the suggestion that maybe Pres. Obama is not simply doing whatever Geithner thinks he should do, as has often seemed to be the case thus far.
As recently as this week, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has said he wants to dedicate much of the unspent TARP money to reduce the national debt. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and other top Democrats have been crafting a jobs bill that would tap the bailout program. The size of the repayments from once shaky banks may make it possible to accomplish both goals.
Of course, this passage indicates that some of the remaining TARP may be used to reduce the debt, but I suppose it is encouraging that Pres. Obama is not completely on the same page as Geithner. One hopes it is a sign of further things to come.
But I must re-emphasize that it is not clear just how much of the remaining TARP funds will be used for job creation. I would hope that all of it, including whatever additional funds are paid back in the coming months, will be directed toward infrastructure projects or to shore up state budgets around the country rather than paying down debt. Though polls show increasing public concern over the debt, people are more concerned about having a job to put food on the table and to pay their bills.
The national debt is not an insignificant problem in the long term, but as the President himself acknowledges, debt reduction won't happen until the economy regains its health and that won't happen unless people have jobs. Though Americans are rightly concerned about the deficit and debt as a long term problem, as FDR advisor and confidante Harry Hopkins once said, "people don't eat in the long term."
On the political side, I think the Republicans will claim that using TARP for anything other than bailing out the banks would be illegal since the law creating TARP specifically designated the funds as such, and of course they will further accuse Democrats of spending our country into the poorhouse. But the easy response to that is to highlight the notion that Republicans are cool with using TARP to help bankers but not to help average, struggling Americans. Maybe that will help the Democrats in reclaiming the populist mantle just in time for the mid-terms.