How much will the Wall Street bailout cost? Remember that the widely-used number was $700 billion. Well, it may be over three times that amount. Bailoutsleuth.com reports that the actual (and perhaps rising) price tag now stands at over $2 trillion:
Adding together the $170 billion that the Treasury Department has currently agreed to provide banks in additional capital, the $150 billion that the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are providing to AIG and the $2 trillion that the Federal Reserve has provided banks in emergency loans brings the total assistance to $2.32 trillion.
If the estimated savings from the new tax breaks are included, the assistance would climb to $2.46 trillion. That total does not include other measures not focused directly on banks, such as Treasury Department’s $200 billion in support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration’s $300 billion HOPE for Homeowners program.
Add all of that together and you reach almost $3 trillion. (How many solar panels can you buy for that?) Remember that Bill Clinton came into office and he and his aides encountered deficits much bigger than expected. What’s going to happen when Obama moves into the White House and has to contend with the real cost of the so-called rescue? (Yes, the Treasury is supposed to get some of this money back–eventually.) By the way, to provide some context, the current (and falling) GDP of the United States is $14.4 trillion. The total bailout tab is over one-third of the nation’s entire output of goods and services.
