January 12, 2009

Chris Dodd Is Putting His Foot Down on TARP. Kinda

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Chris Dodd must have woken up this morning and finally realized he is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. He announced today that he is blocking the release of any further TARP funds ($350 billion remains in federal coffers) until the limits on executive pay and the help for struggling homeowners that were promised around the time of TARP’s passage are made into a reality. (A rough paraphrase of Hank Paulson from October 2008: “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. No golden parachutes. Money for families in foreclosure. Fine. Just please give us the damn money.”)

Dodd’s a little late to this party. After all, half the TARP funds have been distributed and it’s not clear that any oversight was used, any limitation on executive pay was enacted, or any help has trickled down to the folks who are actually losing their homes. And, to be honest, he’s a little weak in the spine. Barney Frank, Dodd’s equivalent in the House, is standing behind legislation that would improve the bailout program while Dodd is reportedly ready to let the process move forward unchanged following a stern letter to the Obama people. Presumably Dodd would hold a press conference and say that the transition office has given him all the assurances he needs. Which is ridiculous, of course, because Paulson snowed him in exactly the same way.

By the way, is TARP working for you? It’s working for us.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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