via Geithner Preparing Overhaul Of Bailout – washingtonpost.com.
By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 9, 2009; Page A01
Confronted with intense skepticism on Capitol Hill over the $700 billion financial rescue program, Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy F. Geithner and President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team are urgently overhauling the embattled initiative and broadening its scope well beyond Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said.
Geithner has been working night and day on the eighth floor of the transition team office in downtown Washington with Lawrence H. Summers and other senior economic advisers to hash out a new approach that would expand the program’s aid to municipalities, small businesses, homeowners and other consumers. With lawmakers stewing over how Bush administration officials spent the first $350 billion, Geithner has little chance of winning congressional approval for the second half without retooling the program, the sources added.
What Geithner is doing here is nothing short of a miracle. His team along with Summers are burning the midnight oil scrubbing the TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, reshaping it into what it was supposed to be in the first place. Before the Obama team asks Congress for the second half of the $700 billion bailout, Geithner is ensuring that this time there will be monitoring and transparency. If you mix in some regulation, then I think we will have what we need.
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