How Very Special

clipped from ace.mu.nu In his 256-page report to Congress, Barofsky notes that the Treasury Department's failure to implement anti-fraud measures, or even to require TARP recipients to report how they used the billions Congress and the Treasury Department gave them, makes it highly unlikely that the $317 billion outstanding -- nearly half the TARP total -- will ever be returned to taxpayers. So there you have it: Treasury officials lied to Congress and the public, and refused to demand even a basic level of accountability from TARP recipients while borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars that taxpayers will eventually have to pay back, plus billions in interest. Incidentally, Obama ally General Electric, owner of Obama-approved media organizations NBC and MSNBC, lobbied for special rules to get TARP money despite having almost nothing at all to do with banking. (They have a finance arm, but their "banking" presence derives from the ownership of two small banks.)