How would you vote on TARP?

[🕴🏼Melior🕴🏼]

Aye (D)

I don't get why anyone would oppose this. This undeniably saved us from economic disaster. 

[The_Doctor]

Aye for obvious reasons. ..the global economy collapsing is reason enough despite the deplorable moral hazards involved.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Obvious Nay; it did absolutely nothing to save us from massive recession (which happened anyway) and was nothing short of robbery of the taxpayer to feed the pockets of fat cats who made bad investment decisions. Absolutely disgusting bit of legislation. There's a reason I have Jackson as my sig.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/10/the_bailout_wil.html

Pence opposed it, Trump supported. One of the issues I agree with Pence more than I do with Trump.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Yes on condition that they would have to pay the federal government the bailout money back , and the government returns that money to the tax payers.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Yea, assuming nationalization wouldn't pass congress.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Aye.

[Hydera]

It prevented the economy from collapsing further. I thought TARP was a bad idea at the time. But when i read more into it, the more sense it made because there was no way that if the financial insitutions collapsed further then somehow a quicker economic rebound would happen just like some claim if only TARP was voted down.  Also the TARP money was paid back in full by 2012.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

It prevented the economy from collapsing further. I thought TARP was a bad idea at the time. But when i read more into it, the more sense it made because there was no way that if the financial insitutions collapsed further then somehow a quicker economic rebound would happen just like some claim if only TARP was voted down.  Also the TARP money was paid back in full by 2012.

-None of this is true. TARP didn't prevent the economy from collapsing further (the recession only ended in mid-2009), the risk of financial collapse was massively overblown, and the TARP money was not paid back in full by 2012.

[Hydera]

It prevented the economy from collapsing further. I thought TARP was a bad idea at the time. But when i read more into it, the more sense it made because there was no way that if the financial insitutions collapsed further then somehow a quicker economic rebound would happen just like some claim if only TARP was voted down.  Also the TARP money was paid back in full by 2012.

-None of this is true. TARP didn't prevent the economy from collapsing further (the recession only ended in mid-2009), the risk of financial collapse was massively overblown, and the TARP money was not paid back in full by 2012.

http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2012/oct/25/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-banks-paid-back-all-federal-bail/

Also we already tried the let-the-economy-fix-itself libertarian approach in 1928. And by the time Hoover took action it was already too late and unemployment reached up to 25%.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

It prevented the economy from collapsing further. I thought TARP was a bad idea at the time. But when i read more into it, the more sense it made because there was no way that if the financial insitutions collapsed further then somehow a quicker economic rebound would happen just like some claim if only TARP was voted down.  Also the TARP money was paid back in full by 2012.

-None of this is true. TARP didn't prevent the economy from collapsing further (the recession only ended in mid-2009), the risk of financial collapse was massively overblown, and the TARP money was not paid back in full by 2012.

http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2012/oct/25/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-banks-paid-back-all-federal-bail/

Also we already tried the let-the-economy-fix-itself libertarian approach in 1928. And by the time Hoover took action it was already too late and unemployment reached up to 25%.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/04/ive_won_my_tarp.html

-You are seriously trying to analogize the historically specific conditions of the interwar gold standard to the present situation, when none of these specific interwar conditions apply? Seriously?

Also, FDR took the action that mattered (shutting off gold exports in April 1933), not Hoover.

[TJ in Oregon]

Nay. We shouldn't have bailed out the banks who owned underwater mortgages, we should have bailed out the homeowners whose houses were underwater. That way we could have stopped the collapse (as much as TARP did anyway) and prevented people from losing their houses. True, the ought to known better than to sign up for the mortgages in the first place, but that's the banks' fault as much as it is the homeowners. By bailing out the banks we managed to reward bad behavior and screw over the little guy at the same time.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Yes, on the condition that all banks receiving funds fired their CEOs and Vice Presidents.

[Goldwater]

Nay. We shouldn't have bailed out the banks who owned underwater mortgages, we should have bailed out the homeowners whose houses were underwater. That way we could have stopped the collapse (as much as TARP did anyway) and prevented people from losing their houses. True, the ought to known better than to sign up for the mortgages in the first place, but that's the banks' fault as much as it is the homeowners. By bailing out the banks we managed to reward bad behavior and screw over the little guy at the same time.

I am inclined to agree with this. Bank bailouts don't sit well with me.

[Gass3268]

I would have voted aye, but I would have worked my butt off to make it stipulated that any bank that took money would be broken up after the crisis concluded.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Bailing out the homeowners is also a bad idea, since it would increase implicit government backing for a larger portion of investments. Not entirely sure if it was a better or worse idea than bailing out the bankers; the question is one of incentives. The role of the government should not have been bailing people out, but preventing instability in gross nominal expenditures as far as feasible. That would have smoothed out how the market redirected resources, rather than having the government move them around from the taxpayer to some failed investor for no obvious social benefit.

[Mr. Smith]

Nay. We shouldn't have bailed out the banks who owned underwater mortgages, we should have bailed out the homeowners whose houses were underwater. That way we could have stopped the collapse (as much as TARP did anyway) and prevented people from losing their houses. True, the ought to known better than to sign up for the mortgages in the first place, but that's the banks' fault as much as it is the homeowners. By bailing out the banks we managed to reward bad behavior and screw over the little guy at the same time.

This precisely.

[RINO Tom]

Absolutely aye.

[Torie]

TARP was essential to save the banking/financial system, but I am still pissed off that the stock of the banks was not seized, and resold, zeroing out the then shareholders of the insolvent banks. Instead, over time they were enriched, as the Feds nursed the banks back to life by loaning them money at about a zero interest rate, and letting them lend it back to the Feds risk free at a higher rate. That sucked. So yes, I would have supported it at the time, but tried hard to get the bill amended as described above.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Absolutely aye.

-Tom, you're just a big government Wall Street RINO, and not conservative at all. The majority of the House Republican caucus in 2008 opposed TARP, for good reason:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/110-2008/h681

[DavidB.]

Aye (R, not dogmatic)...

Though this sounds very good to me too:

Nay. We shouldn't have bailed out the banks who owned underwater mortgages, we should have bailed out the homeowners whose houses were underwater. That way we could have stopped the collapse (as much as TARP did anyway) and prevented people from losing their houses. True, the ought to known better than to sign up for the mortgages in the first place, but that's the banks' fault as much as it is the homeowners. By bailing out the banks we managed to reward bad behavior and screw over the little guy at the same time.

[Kingpoleon]

With the amendment that all mortgages are canceled, yes. R. Glenn Hubbard, Saul N. Ramirez Jr., Steve Preston, and Mary Schapiro should have been put in charge of: (A) breaking up the biggest banks; (B) nationalization and immediate selling of up to one-half of the companies'/banks' stocks; and (C) proper implementation of it.

[Phony Moderate]

Yes on the condition that anyone who supports it is forbidden from moaning about the budget deficit.

[courts]

no. i think it says a lot that the posters claiming they would vote "yes" are adding all sorts of amendments and other neat little conditions. i might agree to those proposals sure but that's not what we're talking about here.