The government’s TARP bailout, meant to rescue Wall Street and the auto industry from the 2008 crash, will end up costing taxpayers a net $33 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.
Known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP was a $700 billion program designed to infuse money into banks and investment firms, and was later tapped to aid the country’s major car manufacturers. Of the $700 billion initially authorized, about $438 billion has been paid out, the CBO said.
Some of the money produced repayments and investment returns, while other money did not.
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The federal government doled out a total of $313 billion for financial institutions, but actually recouped $24 billion from buying bank shares and giving additional assistance to Citigroup and Bank of America. The government also gained $3 billion from public-private partnership investments.
But those gains were overshadowed by losses: $33 billion for home mortgage programs, $12 billion to prop up General Motors and Chrysler, and $15 billion to bail out insurance company American International Group (AIG), the CBO said.
CBO had pegged the final price tag for TARP at $30 billion in March 2016, and said the increase is due to a change in anticipated payments for mortgage programs.
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