Assessing TARP on the Eve of Its Expiration

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  The Congressional Oversight Panel's 30th and final oversight report describes the financial crisis, summarizes and updates the Panel's prior oversight reports, and evaluates federal financial stabilization initiatives.
In order to evaluate the TARP‘s impact, one must first recall the extreme fear and uncertainty that infected the financial system in late 2008. The stock market had endured tripledigit swings. Major financial institutions, including Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers, had collapsed, sowing panic throughout the financial markets. The economy was hemorrhaging jobs, and foreclosures were escalating with no end in sight. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said that the nation was on course for ?a cataclysm that could have rivaled or surpassed the Great Depression.
As the TARP evolved, Treasury found its options increasingly constrained by public anger about the program. The TARP is now widely perceived as having restored stability to the financial sector by bailing out Wall Street banks and domestic automotive manufacturers while doing little for the 13.9 million workers who are unemployed, the 2.4 million homeowners who are at immediate risk of foreclosure, or the countless families otherwise struggling to make ends meet.
It is now clear that, although America has endured a wrenching recession, it has not experienced a second Great Depression. The TARP does not deserve full credit for this outcome, but it provided critical support to markets at a moment of profound uncertainty. It achieved this effect in part by providing capital to banks but, more significantly, by demonstrating that the United States would take any action necessary to prevent the collapse of its financial system.