Repeal is moot

Two years after Republicans won control of the House, the lone bill aimed at repealing the Troubled Asset Relief Program died in committee. All money that could be loaned under the program has already gone out, so at this point cancelling TARP is "effectively a moot issue,” said Douglas Elliott of the Brookings Institution.

We should point out also that the Dodd-Frank financial reform law -- another target of Republican ire -- outlawed any new TARP spending when it was passed in July of 2010. A Congressional Research Service report from May 2012 spells out that Dodd-Frank "amended the TARP authority, including (1) reduction of the overall amount to $475 billion; (2) removal of the ability to reuse TARP funds that had been repaid; and (3) removal of the authority to create new TARP programs or initiatives.”

The report notes too that ”the original TARP authority to purchase new assets or enter into new contracts expired on October 3, 2010” -- before Republicans took a majority in the House.

"This is all theatrics,” Lawrence White, a New York University business professor, said when we asked about the notion of repealing TARP now. "Whatever has been lent/spent under TARP is history. There is no new activity, except that some banks are still in the process of paying back their loans to the Treasury.”

Considering the lack of any significant action to repeal TARP and the fact that doing so now would be essentially impossible, we rate this a Promise Broken.