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54–244 PDF 2009

S. HRG. 111–208 

OVERSIGHT OF THE TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF 

PROGRAM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

ON 

CONTINUING THE OVERSIGHT OF THE TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF 

PROGRAM AND EXPLORING HOW THE PROGRAM CAN BE MADE MORE 

EFFECTIVE IN ADDRESSING THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN OUR NATION 

MAY 20, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 

( 

Available at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/senate05sh.html 
COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut, Chairman 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

JON TESTER, Montana 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

MEL MARTINEZ, Florida 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

EDWARD SILVERMAN, Staff Director 

WILLIAM D. DUHNKE, Republican Staff Director 

AMY FRIEND, Chief Counsel 

DEAN V. SHAHINIAN, Senior Counsel 

JULIE CHON, Counsel 

JONATHAN MILLER, Professional Staff Member 

DREW COLBERT, Legislative Assistant 

DEBORAH KATZ, OCC Detailee 

MARK OESTERLE, Republican Chief Counsel 

ANDREW J. OLMEM, JR., Republican Counsel 

DAWN RATLIFF, Chief Clerk 

DEVIN HARTLEY, Hearing Clerk 

SHELVIN SIMMONS, IT Director 

JIM CROWELL, Editor 

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C O N T E N T S 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2009 

Page 

Opening statement of Chairman Dodd .................................................................. 1 

Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of: 

Senator Shelby .................................................................................................. 4 

Senator Reed 

Prepared Statement .................................................................................. 49 

WITNESS 

Timothy Geithner, Secretary, Department of the Treasury ................................. 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49 

Response to written questions of: 

Senator Dodd ............................................................................................. 59 

Senator Kohl .............................................................................................. 64 

Senator Bennett ........................................................................................ 65 

Senator Crapo ............................................................................................ 67 

Senator Vitter ............................................................................................ 70 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUPPLIED FOR THE RECORD

Letter submitted by Senator Martinez .................................................................. 72 

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(1) 

OVERSIGHT OF THE TROUBLED ASSETS 

RELIEF PROGRAM 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met at 9:38 a.m., in room SD–538, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Christopher J. Dodd (Chairman of the 

Committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CHRISTOPHER J. DODD 

Chairman DODD. The Committee will come to order. 

Let me welcome the Secretary, and the audience is gathered this 

morning to hear testimony from the Secretary of the Treasury. Our 

hearing this morning is on the continuing oversight of the Troubled 

Assets Relief Program. We thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us 

here this morning. 

I intend as Chairman of this Committee for this to be something 

of a regular date with us over the coming weeks and months. A 

number of my colleagues have raised the issue in the past, and I 

know your recent comments about transparency at the Department, in a sense you have a lot of important jobs to do, and I know 

that coming before congressional hearings all the time can be seen 

by some as a distraction from the daily routines. But, obviously, at 

times like this where so much of our constituents’ tax money is at 

play, having you come before us with some regularity to talk about 

these issues I think is a critical component of the job. And so while 

we will try not to abuse the relationship between the Congress and 

executive branch, I think unlike other times, this moment requires 

that we have more of an ongoing public conversation about these 

issues. So with some regularity we will be asking you to be here 

before this Committee in the coming weeks and months. 

I intend for this, as I said, to be something of a regular date. The 

American people have a lot on the line right now, as all of us know, 

and it is their money we are talking about. So, Mr. Secretary, with 

so much on the line, 

I would like to have you before this Committee on a monthly 

basis. 

Today the Committee meets to continue its oversight of the Troubled Assets Relief Program and explore the program’s effectiveness 

in addressing the financial crisis. When the Secretary was last before this Committee in February, only a few short weeks after 

President Obama took office, I said that we needed a sharp change 
2 

in the direction of the TARP program. In particular, I wanted to 

see a commitment to three things: 

First, extending credit to families so that families could pay for 

a home, a car, college tuition for their children, and to businesses 

so they could stock inventory and meet payrolls. 

Second, I wanted to see a commitment to restoring confidence, a 

clearly articulated plan for the prudent commitment of TARP 

funds, and a renewed focus on lending. 

And, third, I wanted to see clarity for the American people who 

have a right to know where our economy is headed and how Government assistance is being used. 

Since that time, we have seen several major initiatives, many of 

which the Secretary here played a very key role in developing. And 

to be sure, we have seen progress in certain areas. In February, the 

administration unveiled its Homeownership Preservation Program 

which consists of two parts: the first, a refinance program, which 

will help, we hope, 4 to 5 million homeowners, many of whom owe 

more on their homes than they are worth, to get into stable mortgages; the second component draws upon $50 billion in TARP funds 

to help between 3 and 4 million at-risk homeowners modify their 

home loans. And I would like to know what additional tools, if any, 

the Secretary may need to ensure that the program works to the 

best of its ability. 

The Center for Responsible Lending projects that some 17,000 

homes in my home State will go into foreclosure in 2009. That will 

be 60,000 in the small State of Connecticut over the next 4 years, 

reminding us that the housing crisis remains at the root of our underlying financial crisis. 

We need to get to the bottom of the housing crisis, I think all 

of us acknowledge, and I believe this program, supplemented by 

the legislation that passed the Congress, both Houses, just yesterday offering banks a safe harbor to do modifications, and I thank 

Mel Martinez, our colleague and former HUD Secretary for his efforts in that record. It provides a mechanism by which we can. But 

in other respects, it is still too soon to tell whether we are seeing 

the progress that we need. Much of the mortgage market and our 

financial system remain dependent on the Government to function 

at all. Lending remains down, way down, and my hope is that the 

legislation that I have just mentioned, which also increases the 

permanent borrowing authority of the FDIC, the Federal Deposit 

Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Administration, and increases in deposit insurance limits will contribute to the 

healthier banking system our communities need in order to thrive. 

Along the same lines, I am pleased that your Department recently announced it will use some $15 billion to free up money for 

lenders to make new loans to small businesses. This is a major concern of ours. I hear this every day from our colleagues. The SBA 

program, when is small business going to get money? When can 

they get help? They are struggling. A major source of employment 

in this country comes, obviously, from small business, and they are 

struggling, Mr. Secretary. 

Just yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reminded us again of the 

troubled commercial real estate sector and how that poses—what 

risk that poses to our financial system. That report found that such 
3 

loans which fund the construction of shopping malls, hotels, office 

and apartment buildings, could generate losses of $100 billion by 

the end of next year at some 940 small and mid-size banks. Indeed, 

one of the results of the stress test administered to the 19 largest 

U.S. bank holding companies returned largely encouraging results. 

In the rush to address concerns facing the institutions that are too 

big to fail in this crisis, we must not forget about the threat posed 

by those that many may well prove to be too small to survive—the 

smaller institutions on which families and businesses across our 

Nation depend for credit. 

Perhaps the biggest step the Secretary has taken is the Public– 

Private Investment Program the Treasury Department rolled out 

in March, which I hope will at long last put an end to the lurching 

interventions in the banking system that were part and parcel of 

the previous administration’s approach. Drawing upon $75 to $100 

billion of TARP funds, the program seeks to engage private investors in partnership with the FDIC to purchase from banks and 

other institutions so-called legacy assets, which have fallen sharply 

in value and put enormous strain in our financial system. 

The question now would appear, Will this program work? Many 

questions have been raised. The Committee will be monitoring that 

program carefully, and I am interested to hear how the Secretary 

believes the results of the stress test will affect the program and 

whether the banks will still be willing to sell those assets at discounted prices given the better than expected results of the stress 

test. 

We have also seen Treasury’s continued administration of the 

automotive industry financing program under TARP and the Presidential task force on the auto industry to help stabilize the auto 

industry, upon which one in ten American jobs depend. Now, we 

know June 1 is a big date, but I want to let my colleagues know 

on the Committee that my intention is shortly after June 1 to have 

either the Secretary or Mr. Rattner or whoever is appropriate to 

come before this Committee to report on the results of that effort 

and where we stand with Chrysler and GM as well. The President 

and the Secretary appreciate the risk that the failure of any one 

of the Big Three automakers could pose to our economy, and right 

now GM is working to beat the June 1 deadline for an agreement 

with management, the UAW, creditors, and suppliers. Chrysler, as 

we all know, is in the midst of bankruptcy, and clearly we are still 

a ways away from knowing how successful those efforts are at helping these companies achieve long-term viability. But, again, transparency demands, I think, that we have a public disclosure of how 

those programs are working. 

And so I think the picture remains mixed, Mr. Secretary. After 

losing some 5.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 

of 2007, with almost two-thirds of those losses occurring in the recent 5-month period, there is no question about the barrage of initiatives undertaken by the administration and the Congress these 

last several months to aggressively combat this crisis that have 

produced some results. And the TARP has played a critical role in 

virtually all of those efforts, I might add. 

Now, having apparently staunched much of the bleeding, the 

challenge now is how we pump new life into the patient. We hope 
4 

to explore what further role the TARP can play in this process and 

what other tools we must provide to our financial system and the 

country in order to get us back on our feet again. 

With those questions the Committee has this morning, I now 

turn to my colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD C. SHELBY 

Senator SHELBY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to the 

Committee, Mr. Secretary. As Senator Dodd indicated, I think we 

will be spending a lot of time together in the next year or so. 

Mr. Secretary, a review of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, 

or TARP, reveals a record that is mixed at best. Since TARP’s 

hasty conception last September, the Treasury Department has repeatedly stumbled in its effort to turn it into a workable program. 

Rather than taking the time to devise a credible plan, Treasury 

and the Fed I believe simply demanded that Congress write a 

blank check. Unfortunately, Congress panicked and quickly passed 

the TARP, giving Treasury and the Fed exactly what they wanted. 

Secretary Geithner, you have been, first as President of the New 

York Fed and now as Treasury Secretary, a key architect and now 

an implementer of the program. 

Since TARP’s creation, Treasury has vacillated about how to 

spend the funds. Initially, Treasury was to purchase toxic assets 

from banks through Government-run auctions. When that approach 

proved unworkable, Treasury decided to make direct capital injections into banks. When that approach still left large institutions 

without sufficient resources, Treasury embarked on a series of ad 

hoc financial bailouts. 

Now, today, we have come full circle. Once again the Treasury 

plans to purchase toxic assets, this time, as you have told us, using 

public–private partnerships. All of these plans, Mr. Secretary, have 

one thing in common: Government intervention on a massive scale 

into our economy. 

While the Government has an important role to play in stemming a financial crisis, in my opinion the programs laid out thus 

far by you, Mr. Secretary, go well beyond what is appropriate and 

necessary. As a result, TARP has become one big bailout fund, and 

not just for banks. 

When a few insurance companies ran into trouble due to bad 

business decisions, Secretary Geithner, you announced that they 

could access TARP funds and avoid the consequences of their actions. When the automakers needed cash, Mr. Secretary, you were 

there with a check. And what has Treasury accomplished so far? 

That is part of this hearing today. 

Its principal achievement over the past year has been, in my 

judgment, to spark the greatest financial panic this country has 

seen in 70 years. The Treasury and the Fed’s desperate calls last 

September for the passage of the TARP legislation spooked investors and consumers alike. In response, the market plummeted and 

the economy contracted sharply. 

I believe that had the Treasury, as we look back, and the Fed 

exercised different judgment and proceeded in a more deliberative 

and measured manner, the most severe aspects of this financial crisis could very well likely have been avoided, probably without pain. 
5 

The failure to devise, Mr. Secretary, a clear and credible plan for 

employing TARP has also resulted in a massive waste, some people 

believe, of taxpayer dollars. Today the problems with our banking 

system remain unresolved, despite Treasury having committed approximately $600 billion. 

Lending is still severely depressed, and questions remain about 

the financial health of many of our banks, despite the results of the 

stress tests. While the TARP has treated many sick banks, it certainly has not cured them, and as long as the integrity of our financial institutions remains in question, economic recovery will continue to elude us. 

I believe that this uncertainty would not exist had Congress 

taken the time to provide a clear legislative mandate for the TARP 

rather than leave the program to the discretion and the whims of 

Treasury’s ever changing policy preferences. That, of course, did 

not happen, and most of our biggest banks today continue to hold 

large tranches of TARP funds, allowing them to avoid making, I believe, Mr. Secretary, difficult decisions. 

I fear this situation sets the stage for the creation of the American version of the zombie banks that were a principal cause of Japan’s so-called lost decade. During that period, as you well know, 

Japan’s economy stagnated because government bailouts propped 

up banks and sheltered them from making the changes that the 

free markets would have demanded and made on their own. 

Another thing that the TARP has accomplished is covering up 

the egregious failures of our banking regulators over the past decade. TARP funds have saved financial institutions whose failures 

would have cast a bright light on many of our banking regulators. 

This should come as no surprise to many as many of those banking 

regulators are now running TARP programs, including you, Mr. 

Secretary, yourself. 

As President of the New York Fed, Mr. Secretary, you were the 

chief regulator of many of the financial institutions with the most 

serious problems, including Citicorp. Unfortunately, the Treasury 

also appears to be using the TARP to advance its regulatory reform 

agenda by placing your prior employer, the Federal Reserve, at the 

apex of our financial regulator regime. I would point out to the Secretary today that there are serious, serious, Mr. Secretary, 

unexamined questions regarding the Fed’s failure to fulfill its preexisting regulatory responsibilities. You have acknowledged some 

of those failures. 

With that in mind, I will view with great skepticism any move 

to give the Fed expanded authority. In the meantime, we should 

be under no illusions about how difficult it will be to unwind the 

massive funding facility that Treasury and the Fed have constructed. The longer the TARP and these programs exist, the more 

markets will depend on them. As a result, it is very likely that the 

greatest challenge posed by this financial crisis still lies ahead, Mr. 

Secretary. If the Treasury and the Fed stumble in dismantling 

these facilities, they risk sparking another and potentially more severe crisis. This is especially true if the Fed promises its ability to 

conduct monetary policy in the process. 
6 

If done well, the withdrawing of Government intervention will 

likely go unnoticed. If done poorly, we could be facing a serious inflation problem or a prolonged economic downturn. 

I look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Secretary, on how you 

propose to retract TARP facilities and how quickly you believe it 

could be done and under what circumstances. In addition, I hope 

to learn today whether you believe that the Fed and the Treasury 

need to formulate a clearer framework for the administration of existing facilities to ensure that the Fed remains focused on its core 

mission of monetary policy. 

Looking ahead, Mr. Secretary, I hope that TARP can be wound 

down in the right way at the appropriate time in manner more deliberative and well thought out than the process by which it was 

created and implemented. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Let me ask my colleagues if any of you feel so compelled that you 

would like to make an opening statement. If not, I would like to 

get right to the Secretary, but I certainly do not want to deprive 

anyone of the chance. Bob, do you have—— 

Senator MENENDEZ. Mr. Chairman, I do not have an opening 

statement. I have a question for the Chair, and that is, do you intend at some point today to pursue the FTA Administrator’s nomination or is that not on the agenda? 

Chairman DODD. Well, I do not know. I have to talk to Senator 

Shelby. 

Senator MENENDEZ. I would defer to the Chair and the Ranking 

Member to consider it, if it is possible. There are a whole host of 

projects that are—— 

Chairman DODD. We are talking to the minority, and this is a 

person, I can tell you, who is highly regarded and respected. In 

fact, we will try and get that done. 

Senator MENENDEZ. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DODD. Anybody else want to make an opening comment at all or suggestion here before we start with the Secretary? 

Hearing none, no takers, Mr. Secretary. We welcome you to the 

Committee once again. Any and all statements, documents, and so 

forth that you want to make a part of the record will be included. 

STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY GEITHNER, SECRETARY, 

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY 

Secretary GEITHNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few 

brief opening remarks, and I look forward to getting a chance to 

respond to your questions and concerns. And let me just say that 

I would be happy to come up here as often as would be helpful, and 

I agree with you that these are deeply important issues to the future of the country, and they require careful public oversight and 

debate. And I am committed to sitting before you as much as it 

would be helpful and help work through the difficult choices we are 

making, make sure you understand how we are balancing those 

choices. People are not going to agree with all the choices we make, 

but we will give you a chance to make sure you have as much exposure to our process as possible. 
7 

Chairman DODD. I welcome that very much, and I know my 

Committee members do as well. So I appreciate that. 

Secretary GEITHNER. And, Senator Shelby, could I just say at the 

beginning that in my statement today and in my remarks, I am not 

going to talk about what you called an ‘‘exit strategy,’’ but I want 

to say that I agree very much with you that one of the biggest challenges we face—not just on the fiscal front, but in the financial sector—is how we lay the foundation for walking back and unwinding 

these extraordinary interventions, and doing that carefully and 

well will be one of the most important things facing us. So I agree 

with you about that challenge, and I very much look forward to a 

chance to sit before you and talk through how best we can do that. 

Senator SHELBY. We will have to do that to have a real market 

economy, will we not? 

Secretary GEITHNER. We will, and, you know, you cannot—you 

know, my view, Senator, as you know, is that crises do not burn 

themselves out. Crises this severe do not burn themselves out. To 

fix them requires the action of Government. But for the thing to 

work, there needs to be critical commitments to walk this back, unwind it as quickly as conditions permit. That is central to the effectiveness of the strategy, and I agree with you it is a very important 

thing to do. But I just wanted to warn you that I am not prepared 

to talk to that today. It is not quite time yet. 

Chairman DODD. We all agree with that. 

Secretary GEITHNER. We are not quite there yet. 

Chairman DODD. Go ahead, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Thank you, and thank you all on the Committee today. 

The last time I was here was early February. Today I am pleased 

to report that there are encouraging signs that the financial system 

is starting to heal. Concern about systemic risk has diminished, 

and overall credit conditions have started to improve. These are 

welcome signs, but we have a long way to go. 

Across the country, families and businesses are still facing the 

most challenging economic environment they have seen in decades, 

and we are only at the beginning of laying the foundation for recovery. 

I want to provide an update today on the status of the programs 

we put in place to help repair the financial system. This administration, working very closely with you and your colleagues in the 

Congress, has moved very quickly. Alongside the passage of the Recovery Act, we have outlined a comprehensive set of initiatives to 

help restore confidence in the financial system and to restart the 

flow of credit. 

We began with reforms to establish strong standards of transparency, accountability, and oversight. We redirected the program 

to focus on getting the essential channels for lending and credit 

working again. We launched new programs focusing on the housing 

market, on consumer and small business lending, and we put in 

place a strategy to help strengthen, recapitalize, clean up, and restructure the major banks so that private capital would flow to 

where it was needed in the financial system. 

Just a few examples of progress. Starting with transparency, we 

established a number of new online resources so that Americans 
8 

can see the precise financial terms of the assistance we are providing; who is receiving assistance; and what they are doing with 

that assistance; what is actually happening to lending across the 

major banks. 

The President’s housing program, alongside actions by the Federal Reserve, has helped bring down mortgage interest rates to historic lows. Refinancing has surged, and the new loan modification 

program is just starting to get some traction. 

The Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility, 

which the Treasury supports with capital, is helping to restart the 

asset-backed securities market, which is critical to consumers and 

businesses. To date, there has been about $25 billion in total new 

asset-backed securities issuance since the program was launched. 

As issuance of securities under this program has resumed, interest 

rates have come down substantially. 

The stress test led by the Federal Reserve has brought an unprecedented level of transparency and disclosure to the major 

banks, helping improve confidence in the financial system as a 

whole. This assessment showed that some banks needed additional 

common equity to ensure they could comfortably absorb extreme 

losses, but it also showed that many banks are now in a position 

where they could choose to begin to repay the Government’s investments. 

To date, more than $56 billion in additional capital funds have 

been raised or announced by the 19 banks, including $34 billion in 

common equity capital. I believe these numbers are a day behind. 

And banks have raised more than $8 billion in non-FDIC-guaranteed bonds. 

We are making substantial progress in supporting fundamental 

restructuring of GM and Chrysler. In the coming weeks, we will be 

moving to put in place additional pieces of our program to help 

small banks get additional access to capital, to help catalyze more 

small business lending, to put in place our Public–Private Investment Program to help restart the market for legacy real estate 

loans and securities, and to finalize regulations to clarify conditions 

on compensation for firms receiving capital assistance from the 

Government. 

While this is not the subject of today’s hearing, we have been 

working very closely with this Committee and your counterparts in 

the House to enact comprehensive regulatory reform. We have announced proposals to reduce systemic risk, to establish comprehensive oversight of derivatives markets, to give the Government better tools to manage future crises with resolution authority to help 

contain the damage caused by the prospective failure of a large, 

complex financial institution. We detailed plans to improve consumer and investor protection, and I want to compliment Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby for their strong leadership, 

not just in the housing area but in advancing important credit card 

reform legislation. 

Just a brief update on resources committed under the Emergency 

Economic Stabilization Act. At the time the President was sworn 

in, over half of the $700 billion allocated to Treasury had already 

been committed. I have included a detailed table of commitments 

in my written testimony. As the table shows, we estimate that we 
9 

still have about $100 billion in resources authorized under the 

EESA still available and an additional $25 billion in estimated repayments over the next year. These are estimates only. They may 

overstate the amount of likely take-up under the programs we have 

announced. They may understate the amount of repayments we are 

going to receive, and I want to emphasize that we still face a very 

challenging economic and financial environment, and we need to be 

careful to preserve substantial resources and flexibility to deal with 

future contingencies. 

The combined impact of these programs to date, alongside actions by the Fed, the impact of the recovery program, and the 

President’s initiatives in the G20 to lay the foundation for global 

recovery, have helped improve conditions in the financial system 

materially. The cost of credit is starting to ease. Interest rates on 

mortgages have dropped to historic lows, and refinancing has 

surged putting additional money into the pockets of millions of 

Americans. Businesses are finding it easier to raise money in the 

capital markets. Securities markets, asset-backed securities markets, are starting to open up again. State and local governments 

are finding it somewhat easier to finance investments in their communities and rebuilding their infrastructure. The cost of borrowing 

by banks has fallen substantially, reflecting greater confidence. 

We have already seen a very substantial amount of adjustment 

in our financial system. Leverage has diminished. The more vulnerable parts of the non-bank financial system—and banks, too—have 

diminished substantially. And banks are funding themselves much 

more conservatively. 

This is all welcome news, but I want to emphasize this is just 

the beginning. The cost of credit for businesses and families is still 

unusually high, remarkably high. Credit terms are very tight still. 

Bank lending is falling to both consumers and businesses. Much of 

this, of course, is the unavoidable consequence of a recession following a long period of excess borrowing and lending. But we still 

face ahead a prolonged period of repair and adjustment. There are 

still very substantial risks to recovery, and it is very important 

that financial institutions take advantage of the recent modest improvement in markets to strengthen their institutions and raise 

capital. 

We need to continue to work to improve the capacity of the financial system to support a strong recovery. Greater confidence in the 

stability of the system is an important part of this, a necessary 

part of this. But we need to make sure that banks are able to expand lending as demand for credit starts to increase. And we need 

the broader securities markets working better for the same reason. 

And this is what our programs are designed to do. We will continue 

to work to make sure they meet that objective. 

I look forward to working with this Committee on how best to do 

that. Thank you very much. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. We appreciate that. What I am going to do is ask the clerk to give us 

about 5 or 6 minutes apiece, and I will not be too rigid on the time, 

but so we all get a chance to raise questions with you. 

Let me start off, if I can. I suspect this would be a question that 

every one of us would raise with you. I will raise it. Others may 
10 

want to expand on the question. But every one of us goes back, Mr. 

Secretary, to our respective States with some regularity, and when 

we do, I suspect everyone on this side of the dais is getting questions from their businesses—small, large, medium: Where is credit? 

How can I get credit? You guys are pushing a lot of my tax money 

into—the very bank that received my tax dollars is turning around 

and telling me I cannot get a loan or I cannot refinance my home. 

That is a pretty basic question we are all getting, and they do 

not understand why, since we are providing so much of the resources to keep these institutions afloat—and you made a good case 

why we should do that, for the well-being of all of us. But they do 

not understand why these institutions are not being more forthcoming at a time we are providing substantial dollars to them to 

keep them alive. 

And so the question would be: Are we doing all we could to get 

credit flowing? Are there more things that you can be doing, the 

Department can be doing, that we ought to be doing? But the frustration level mounts on an hourly basis with people’s lack of access 

to credit, despite the billions that we made available to these institutions? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I agree, Mr. Chairman, and I hear that, too, 

across the country, and I agree that in many parts of the country, 

people do not feel it getting better yet. They do not feel that the 

availability of credit is improving materially. 

Small businesses who were careful, who did not get overextended, did not borrow too much, still face two types of challenges. Some of them had relationships with banks that took on too 

much risk and are having to shrink substantially. They were unlucky in the choice of their banks. Some of them are in industries 

that are seeing demand for their products shrink dramatically, as 

happens in any recession, and they are under a lot of pressure because of those two things. 

Now, what we have done, working with the Congress—and I just 

think this is important to enumerate. The recovery program has 

very substantial tax credits for small businesses. The recovery program includes a substantial increase in guarantees and a reduction 

in fees for small business lending programs, and we have seen 

lending under those programs increase 25 percent since the Recovery Act was passed. 

We have proposed and laid out and are close to putting in place 

additional programs allowing the Government to directly buy small 

business loans off the balance sheets of banks, creating more headroom for them to lend to small businesses. Those programs have 

been delayed a bit, probably by concerns about participation in 

these programs, but we are close to launching those programs. 

Those alongside the Fed facility will help reopen markets for small 

business lending. 

We are also looking at ways to get more capital into community 

banks. I announced 2 weeks ago that we are going to reopen the 

window for small banks to come to the Treasury and apply for additional capital, reopen the ability of some banks to establish bank 

holdings companies, which will help as well. And I think the combined effect of these programs, when in place, will help. 
11 

Now, they will not make it easy for a lot of businesses across the 

country still, again, because we are going through a very traumatic 

financial crisis that was caused in large part by too much borrowing and too much lending. And the adjustment process of that 

will be difficult. The demand for credit is falling substantially as 

businesses repair their balance sheets. That process has a long 

ways to go. But I think our obligation is to make sure that the financial system has the capacity to make credit available to viable 

businesses. These programs will help. 

We are continuing to look at new ways to reinforce these programs. We are working very closely with the SBA and with the 

Fed, and we are open to new suggestions and look at any good 

idea. 

Chairman DODD. I do not want to dwell on the SBA, but I got 

to tell you, you mention the word ‘‘SBA’’—and all of us have done 

this to audiences back home—and you get a roll of the eyes. That 

is the mild response. And I say this respectfully about the SBA. I 

know they try hard. But the fact is that this program—I know 

some efforts have been made to increase to 90 percent the guarantees and do other things under the 7(a) program. But it basically 

is not seen as a great friend in a moment like this. 

So I would urge you to be suggesting—you have got bright people 

down there. How could we make that program be far more aggressive and supportive of what is going on out there? If this is going 

to take time for the normal private commercial lending operations 

to open up their doors, something better needs to be done by the 

SBA, because it is just not seen as an ally and a friend on their 

side in this matter. 

So I just raise that with you because I can just tell you, when 

I have raised the SBA program, I get the roll of the eyes. That is 

the polite response when you bring it up. 

Let me, if I can, jump to commercial real estate, because I do not 

want to—we all have limited time here. The Wall Street Journal 

reported on Tuesday that when it applied the stress test worst-case 

assumptions to 940 small and mid-size banks, total losses would 

exceed $200 billion in those banks, those 940 banks, through 2010, 

with commercial real estate loans accounting for half the losses. 

Two-thirds of the 940 banks would fail to meet the common equity 

capital threshold that was applied to the 19 largest banks in the 

stress test. 

Now, we all know that over $1 trillion in commercial mortgages 

are coming up for renewal over the next several years. Certainly 

there is no financing available to roll these loans over. 

So what impact will these commercial loans have on the banking 

sector, the broader economy, and, again—and we do not say this 

enough. We talk about the banking sector. I think most of us have 

been impressed with how our local community banks in our States 

have been prudent, have been conservative, have handled themselves well over the last few years, and yet they find themselves 

feeling tremendous pressure and stress at a time like this. So how 

are we going to handle this? This light at the end of the tunnel is 

beginning to look like a train, not relief. 
12 

Secretary GEITHNER. You are exactly right. This is a major challenge for banks across the country and for real estate developers 

and people with existing projects they are trying to refinance. 

You are also right to say that, in general, community banks 

across the country came into this recession with higher capital ratios, higher quality capital, in a stronger position. They were not 

generally part of the problem, and they will be able to be a greater 

part of the solution because of that. 

I think the best thing we can do and the most effective way we 

can deal with this, apart from trying to get the economy back on 

track through the efforts in the recovery program, is to make sure 

we are providing capital where it is necessary in the financial system, and that we are getting those securities markets working 

again. 

The Fed announced yesterday the very important step that it is 

going to extend this lending program to commercial mortgagebacked securities, both newly issued securities and legacy assets in 

that area. The market responded quite favorably because the availability of financing in those markets will help get the capital markets in those areas going again. So the combination of more capital 

where it is necessary and getting the securities markets back to the 

point where they can help refinance viable projects are two very 

important steps to take. But you are right to say this is a significant challenge ahead still, and the supervisors are going to be busy 

trying to make sure that the system can manage through that 

problem. 

Chairman DODD. I have one additional question. I am going a little over time, but I do not want this matter not to be raised. I understand that the GAO recommended in March that AIG seek concessions not only from management and employees, but also from 

derivatives counterparties and creditors in return for receiving an 

additional $30 billion in TARP funds allocated to the company. 

SIGTARP also announced plans to review Treasury’s efforts to obtain concessions from these AIG stakeholders. I understand that, 

to date, we have required no concessions at all from AIG’s derivative counterparts and creditors. And while I accept the concerns 

about systemic risk consequences—that is not an illegitimate 

issue—I find it hard to understand why we have to go on indefinitely paying off these companies at 100 percent at a time when 

AIG is not worth 100 percent, its stock. 

And so where is the negotiation going on here? Why aren’t we 

pressing back? Hell, we own about 80 percent of this company. It 

seems to me we ought to be pursuing this more aggressively than 

paying 100 percent on the dollar to this. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I agree, it is frustrating and it is 

hard to explain why this is necessary and fair. But let me just say 

it as starkly as we can. 

We do not have the authority as a Government—and we came 

into this crisis without the authority—to intervene to manage better the risk posed to the system and the economy of an institution 

like AIG. We did not have the authority and the system did not 

prevent it from taking on too much risk, and we did not have the 

authority to manage its unwinding in a carefully measured way. 
13 

That makes it incredibly difficult for us to allocate or to negotiate 

effectively to reduce the value of those claims. We have no option 

now to selectively diminish the value of those claims without taking risk that you would have a default and its consequences for 

this institution at this time. And I do not believe that the system 

today can withstand the effects of a failure of this institution to 

meet its obligations. 

I wish it were not the case. Nothing would make me happier 

than if we were in the position today where we could start to walk 

back that support and diminish the Government’s involvement in 

this institution. But we do not have that ability today. If I felt we 

did, I would do it in a second. And we are working very, very hard 

with the trustees and the Fed and the management of that company for them to put in place a restructuring plan which will derisk the most risky parts of the institution and preserve and separate those underlying insurance businesses, which are very good 

businesses still. And we have a big interest as taxpayers now in 

their success in maximizing value in the disposition of those companies. 

That is the balance we are trying to strike. If I thought there 

was a better way to maximize benefits to taxpayers, then we would 

do it in a second. But without better authority, better resolution 

authority, we have very limited options in the AIG case. 

Chairman DODD. Well, my time has expired. I have gone over a 

bit and I apologize to my colleagues. But with all due respect, Mr. 

Secretary, we need a better answer on this, because that is too 

much exposure at this. So I will end on that particular note, and 

others may want to raise questions about this, but let me turn to 

Senator Shelby. 

Senator SHELBY. Thank you. 

Mr. Secretary, I just want to pick up on where Senator Dodd was 

on AIG. It seems to me that this is a black hole; in other words, 

we keep pumping billions of dollars into AIG. It seems that from 

even some of your statements you have not got all your hands 

around this bear, so to speak, and it is still hemorrhaging money. 

Some people believe that some of the company we worth a lot more, 

the insurance companies, 6 months ago than they are worth today. 

I do not know what they are worth today. 

So how are you going to back out of this? How are you going to 

liquidate or sell parts or all of AIG and quit using the taxpayers’ 

money? Because the taxpayers are upset with this, as you know, 

and it is a difficult situation. But you have got the bear now in the 

house with you. What are you going to do with it? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I wish we did not have it, Senator. 

Senator SHELBY. I know that you do. 

Secretary GEITHNER. And, Senator, you cannot feel more strongly 

than me about the need to get the Government out of this company, get the company to the point where it poses less risk to the 

system and those underlying insurance businesses are on a path 

where they can be viable going forward. And I think you are right 

that this—there is no doubt that this company, not just to the Fed 

and the Treasury, but to its board and management proved much 

more complicated, much more risk than people thought. And it has 

proved much harder to disentangle or separate. 
14 

Senator SHELBY. Perhaps harder than the Government thought 

when it took it over? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Much harder than the Government 

thought, but I should just say from the beginning for the record, 

much, much harder than the management and board of the company felt as well. And they were the ones that led this firm to the 

edge of the abyss. 

Now, the only way forward, just to say it starkly, is to bring 

down the risk as quickly as possible in the AIG financial products 

company. 

Senator SHELBY. How long is that going to take? 

Secretary GEITHNER. They have brought it down very substantially. They are working very hard to bring it down. 

Senator SHELBY. What do you mean by ‘‘substantially’’? 

Secretary GEITHNER. About half. Half, if you look at gross 

notionals, but that is a start. But we want it to come down as 

quickly as possible. We need to separate those underlying businesses from the risk posed by that company so they are less burdened by those losses and can get back to the point where they can 

be viable and the taxpayer can recoup some of the investments it 

has made. And we want that to go as quickly as possible, but to 

be fair, I think the management and board of this firm are finding 

it incredibly difficult to unwind and disentangle those basic companies. That is what is causing the delay. 

And one more thing is very important. Again, this is the worst 

financial crisis in 50 years. That is not an understatement. And all 

companies are finding it harder to sell, raise money to finance purchases in this market. And that is one other reason what has 

caused the delay. But the businesses are more stable today. The 

bleeding has slowed very substantially. The money we made available in the last package is there as a contingency. We are going 

to make sure that it is used as carefully as possible, if it has to 

be used. And, again, Senator, you cannot feel more strongly than 

me about the importance of getting this company on a path where 

it has a restructuring plan that it can execute over a reasonable 

period of time so we reduce the risk it poses to the system. 

Senator SHELBY. How would the AIG bailout having different, 

Mr. Secretary, if a new resolution authority that we talk about and 

you talk about had been in place? In other words, how could you 

have dealt with it if you had the so-called authority that you claim 

you did not have? And how fast would it be? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, the great virtue of the model put in 

place by the Congress for small banks in the country, which the 

FDIC administers, gives the Government the ability to come in 

more quickly with a greater set of options for unwinding, cleaning 

up, separating the bad from the good, and putting the good back 

into the market. It gives the FDIC the authority to guarantee temporarily, to put capital in, to do other steps that help facilitate a 

quicker, more surgical separation to let the Government get out 

more quickly. 

Without that authority, the Fed and the Treasury were forced to 

do a very complicated mix of funding and with less authority to 

provide temporary guarantees, rather than what would have been 

more effective to allow a quicker disposition. 
15 

Now, our options were substantially constrained by the complexity of this firm and by the fact that the world was in such a 

fragile state that the ability to sell these businesses quickly was 

very limited. 

Senator SHELBY. Will you be involved in AIG say a year from 

now? 

Secretary GEITHNER. A year from now? 

Senator SHELBY. You hope not, I hope. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I think realistically this is going to take 

time, and I think that is true—you know, you said at the beginning 

what is very important, which is you want us to begin to plan for 

a credible exit from the extraordinary interventions we have taken. 

But in some parts of the financial system, it is going to take a 

longer period of time than that, probably in AIG, too. 

Senator SHELBY. I hope we will have another round, but the 

Fed’s role, in your last job before you became Secretary of the 

Treasury, as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 

you had bank examination and enforcement responsibilities and 

monetary policy responsibilities with your permanent vote on the 

Federal Open Market Committee. Also as President of the Federal 

Reserve Bank of New York, you reported to a board of directors, 

two-thirds of whom were elected by your member banks. That is 

the system, which I think is conflicting. In other words, an inherent web of conflicts is built into the DNA of the Fed as it now exists. 

You propose, Mr. Secretary, now to complicate the web further, 

I think, by making the Fed the systemic risk regulator. In light of 

the Fed’s—and you played a role in it—the Fed’s track record, don’t 

you think there is a significant risk that in the name of systemic 

risk regulation the Fed would subordinate its bank regulatory and 

monetary policy functions in order to protect and perhaps preserve 

the biggest institution? Does that concern you? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I do not think there is a significant risk of 

that. 

Senator SHELBY. Why not? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I would not want to take a significant risk 

of that happening. But can I go through—what is a very complicated question, Senator, and let me go through a few pieces of 

your question. 

Congress designed the Federal Reserve System almost a century 

ago. As part of that system, it created this network of 12 reserve 

banks, set up as a complicated mix of public and private institutions with boards, as Congress designed by law, requiring there to 

be three banks, three directors elected by banks, and three directors representing the public interest appointed by the Board of 

Governors. That is the system the Fed has operated under the laws 

of the land for many, many decades. 

Senator SHELBY. Do you believe that is a fair system in today’s 

21st century considering all the conflicts? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I believe—and I wanted to get to this because I am trying to get to your question. 

Senator SHELBY. Go ahead. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I believe that as part of regulatory reform, 

as part of our effort to fix this system and make sure we do not 
16 

face a crisis like this again, we have to take a comprehensive look 

at every aspect of our system, the full mix of authorities, how supervision is conducted, and it will require not just legislative 

changes like what we are discussing with your colleagues on the 

Committee, but it will require that we fundamentally re-examine 

how supervision is conducted, and where there are appearances of 

conflicts or actual conflicts across the system. We are going to want 

to carefully look at those and see how we fix them. 

But I just want to say that the Fed has an enormously elaborate 

set of protections in place against any conflict. Those directors play 

no role in supervision. They play no role in the Fed’s lending programs because, for the reasons you said, it would be inappropriate 

for them to do so. But as I said, I think it is important we take 

a fresh look at these things. I have been very open with the Committee and honest with the Committee, and I think that in all aspects of supervision, including those areas the Fed was responsible 

for, we did not get many things right. We need to do better going 

forward, and we need to work with you to make sure we put in 

place a framework that does that. 

Senator SHELBY. Mr. Secretary, but when banks have a role in 

selecting who their regulator is going to be, that seems a problem 

in the making. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I understand about the awkwardness of 

that structure, but, again, the system, as designed by the Congress 

and applied over decades—— 

Senator SHELBY. I understand that, but the Congress makes mistakes. 

Secretary GEITHNER. No, no, but I think there are a lot of protections in place against that risk. They have no role in setting policy, 

in applying supervision—— 

Senator SHELBY. But they have a role in selecting the president, 

like you or anybody, of the reserve bank. 

Secretary GEITHNER. They have a role, but the Board of Governors has to approve that selection process. There are a lot of 

checks and balances. But as I said, we should take a fresh look at 

conflicts across the system because you do not want to have anybody in public office have their actions viewed through the prism 

of concern that they are motivated by anything but the broad interests of the system. So I share that basic objective. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you, Senator. And this is a subject matter that is going to consume a lot of this Committee’s time and attention, obviously, with the Secretary and others as we move forward on the architecture. 

Let me turn to Senator Reed of Rhode Island. 

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby were 

talking and you were responding about your lack of leverage regarding AIG securities. But this afternoon, the President will sign 

a bill giving you some leverage with respect to the warrants that 

you hold because now you will have the opportunity to hold those 

warrants, and I am told now they are worth to taxpayers about $5 

billion, so that there is some return for the investment the taxpayers have made. And I would suspect in the days going forward 

you will let us know how you will proceed in general with respect 
17 

to your ability now to hold or to sell publicly these warrants. That 

is just an initial point. 

There is a significant issue in raising private capital in a banking system, but one of the issues that may be a potential problem 

is the role of the private equity companies. The Federal Reserve 

has determined that these companies may not directly invest in 

banks, in their regulated institutions. A few days ago, OTS accepted the direct investment of a private equity company with little 

fanfare and I think with little documentation. 

This raises in my mind the issue of regulatory arbitrage. The 

Federal Reserve has made a careful decision that this is not consistent with their policy, but another Federal agency has said it is 

OK. OTS, for the record, regulated AIG, regulated WaMu; Countrywide changed its charter from a national bank under the Federal 

Reserve and Comptroller supervision to become a regulated entity 

of OTS. 

So this, I think, is a problem in the making. It requires, I think, 

a consistent policy across all regulators—the Federal Reserve, 

OCC, FDIC, and OTS. And it requires, I think, also ventilating 

that policy with the Congress and the public so that we understand 

the transparency that is required, we understand the conflict of interest will not be tolerated, we understand who the investors are 

in these entities. Many of them have sovereign funds from countries that we would be at least interested in knowing about. 

So, Mr. Secretary, I would hope you would take very aggressive 

action and very timely action. I understand under the statute that 

you cannot intercede in a matter or proceeding of the OTS, but you 

have general supervision of OTS. I would urge you to use that supervisory authority in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and 

the other regulators. 

Would you like to comment? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I think you are right that this is 

an important issue, and we have to balance the important objective 

of trying to make sure that we maximize the chance we get new 

capital into this financial system. But the specific question on the 

appropriate role of private equity in banks requires careful thought 

and care. I also very much agree that we should have one standard. A central part of what made this system weak was the opportunities we created and allowed for arbitrage to get around the set 

of protections Congress put in place. 

So I very much agree, and I would like to come back to you and 

maybe jointly have the Fed and the OTS and the supervisors. We 

will provide a little explanation of what we think policy is today 

and what it should be going forward on this very important question. 

Senator REED. Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary, but in the 

interim, there is a huge door that has been opened, and people will 

rush in. And they will rush in unless you take very prompt action 

to ensure that there is at least a standstill. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Promptly come to the Committee and report, not—— 

Senator REED. Well, I think promptly direct OTS that they have 

to be—their conclusions have to be vetted by you, I would assume. 

This is a general policy matter. This is not on a specific issue. 
18 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, we are on it, and I agree with you 

about the need for deliberate speed. 

Senator REED. Let me ask another question here. I understand 

there is an Acting Director of the OTS. When is the President 

going to appoint a Director, which is subject to confirmation by the 

Senate? We have the irony here of policy literally being made by 

an Acting Director, and I believe this individual is the third Director in the last, what, 6 months? 

Secretary GEITHNER. It is not a good situation, I agree, and transitions like this are challenging, and we are moving quickly to try 

to identify a credible leader for this important institution and hope 

to be able to nominate somebody relatively soon. But in this case, 

too, I agree with you about the need for speed. 

Senator REED. Well, again, this is a situation where this policy 

seems to be emerging from an organization that does not a Presidential appointee confirmed by the U.S. Senate. So, again, I think 

adding urgency to your role in making sure that you harmonize 

this policy, whatever it may be. And, again, I think we all recognize 

that the ultimate solution to our difficulties is a vibrant, privately 

capitalized banking institution, but well supervised. And the ‘‘well 

supervised’’ part needs a lot of work. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I could not agree more. 

Senator REED. Thank you. 

Chairman DODD. Senator Bunning. 

Senator BUNNING. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

There are so many things I would like to ask you, and I am not 

going to get the chance to do it all. You mentioned community 

banks, and you mentioned that they would be in the lending business more. You have not been to Kentucky. Kentucky’s community 

banks attack me when I go into Kentucky because of the new assessment of the SDIC. Now, that will change under the new housing bill that we passed, but you say they are going to lend more 

money. They are not going to lend more money out very fast. You 

are looking at about 6 months to a year down the road before they 

start, and none of those banks, none of the community banks are 

part of the problem. They did not—I do not know whether you 

know it or not, but Kentucky was in the lowest five States as far 

as repossessions are concerned. We are not in the lowest five of 

anything usually in Kentucky, but we were because of our community bankers. 

So one community banker with the assessment going from 

$40,000 to $800,000 with the new assessment—now that will be 

changed, but she is not going to make any loans until it is changed. 

Don’t we own 80 percent of AIG? 

Secretary GEITHNER. In effect, we do. 

Senator BUNNING. OK. Then tell me why we do not control what 

AIG does? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, we can have substantial influence on 

what they do, but that does not affect the range of options we have 

for dealing with the issue raised by your Chairman on how we 

treat AIG’s counterparties and creditors. That is a difficult issue 

that involves—— 

Senator BUNNING. Well, if you own a company and you are in 

control by 80-percent ownership in that company, you do not have 
19 

to pay a dollar for a dollar on those losses. You can say we are 

going to try to settle with you for 50 cents on the dollar, just like 

you have done with the losses that you forced the banks to take 

on Chrysler and General Motors. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I understand everyone’s frustration with this issue, and I would like nothing better than to be in 

a different position. But unless we are prepared to contemplate the 

risk for the system of default by AIG on its obligations, then we 

have no choice but to help AIG meet those obligations. And people 

will disagree about this judgment, Senator, but what the country 

of the United States went through in the last 6 months of last year 

is substantially due to what happened because of the failure of 

some of the largest institutions in the world. Default by them on 

their obligations, caused a traumatic, enormously damaging loss of 

confidence, loss of wealth in our system, and was a big part of why 

growth declined in our economy at 6 percent—— 

Senator BUNNING. Well, we can disagree on that, because we can 

disagree that the solutions proposed did not solve the problem, and 

the problem then exacerbated throughout the United States and 

the population in the United States when they saw no reaction in 

the markets. And the markets then created even a deeper spiral for 

our economy, and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. So your solution 

to the problem may not have been the right solution. 

Secretary GEITHNER. You are absolutely right that none of us can 

know with certainty, in retrospect even, whether we chose the best 

of the available options at that time. But one thing that I am quite 

confident is true, which is the damage caused by the failure and 

default by some of the large institutions in the world over that period of time made everything substantially worse. And our inability 

and failure to arrest that was part of the deepening recession in 

the United States and why there is so much damage coming into 

this. 

Now, if AIG had defaulted, it would have been materially worse 

across the country and the world. Now, again, that is not a judgment that everybody will agree with, but I am quite confident that 

is the case. And I think today we are still in a position where—— 

Senator BUNNING. Well, that is the way it was sold. I mean, that 

is the way the TARP was sold, that the sky was going to fall in 

if we did not do something. That is the way you got—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. I believe that what Congress did at that 

point was absolutely essential to hold this system together, and 

without that authority and the actions to put capital in the system, 

I think we would not have a financial system today. 

Senator BUNNING. I have some questions on—just three quick 

questions on Chrysler and General Motors. Did anyone in your Department or administration threaten or attempt to intimidate 

Chrysler or GM creditors to give up their contractual rights or priorities in bankruptcy? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I do not believe anyone did what you suggested. I think what we did in that case was—— 

Senator BUNNING. Well, wait a minute. There is another question. Has there been any influence by your Department or the administration on which auto dealerships are being dropped by 

Chrysler and/or General Motors? 
20 

Secretary GEITHNER. We are trying very carefully not to be involved in those decisions. We think those are decisions for the 

board and management of these companies. 

Senator BUNNING. Has there been any influence by your Department or the administration on which auto plants are to be closed 

or sold by Chrysler and/or General Motors? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Same answer. Our job is to make sure that 

the overall plan leaves these companies in the position where over 

the longer term they are going to emerge viable. That is what we 

are focused on. That is what we are trying to facilitate. Those 

broad judgments you refer to we want to be judgments of management and the board. 

Senator BUNNING. Thank you. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Senator Menendez. 

Senator MENENDEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for your service under incredibly difficult times. I certainly appreciate it. Let me ask you, though, I listened to your statement and some of your responses, you know, as 

it relates to where we are at in liquefying the credit crisis. Lending 

is actually down. Part of that is because of the economy. But there 

is also still very significant demand for credit, and yet it is not acquirable. 

And so I look at what Larry Summers sent to us when we were 

all contemplating the second tranche of TARP and saying that the 

administration was going to impose tough and transparent conditions on firms receiving taxpayer assistance, including ensuring 

that resources are directed to increasing lending. And I hear where 

we are at, and I have two concerns. 

One, how are we going to get the lending to take place? 

Second, based upon what still exists out there and your categorization of it, do you intend at this time to come back to the 

Congress and ask for any more TARP funding? 

And, third, as it relates to lending, community banks, even 

though they are facing pressures, are still the one entity, at least 

in New Jersey that I find, that are still engaged at a level that is 

really about Main Street. But it seems to me that all of our focus 

is on the 19 largest banks, and we have to be thinking about our 

policies in a way that ultimately also looks at the community banks 

and thinking about how our policies affect them, not doing it in a 

macro way in which we are focusing on the 19 banks but not thinking about how that works for community banks. 

So can you give me a sense, one, what are you doing about the 

actual lending, even though the economy is obviously still in significant challenges, but there is still a demand for credit? 

Second, do you think that you are going to be coming back to the 

Congress for TARP funds or similar funds? 

And, third, how do we start looking at these community banks? 

And even under the Capital Purchase Program on TARP, how do 

we look at the conditions for community banks? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Excellent questions, so let me go 

through—— 

Senator MENENDEZ. I only ask excellent questions. 

[Laughter.] 
21 

Secretary GEITHNER. Let me try to go through them quickly. 

As you said, the dominant imperative, the only reason we are 

doing any of these programs, is to try to make sure there is enough 

credit to support a growing economy. And as I said, I think the best 

way we know to do that is to make sure there is capital where it 

needs to be. People raise capital where they can, we put capital in 

where they cannot, and we get the credit markets, and assetbacked securities markets going again. 

I do not know a better way to do it than those two things, and 

you are right that, as you said, in a recession when the economy 

is going like this, demand for credit will fall. And we had borrowing 

go very high as a share of GDP, and so demand for credit will fall 

more in this kind of a recession than it would in a normal recession. But, still—and I think you are right, and you can see this in 

the fact that interest rates are so very high—demand for credit is 

greater than what looks like the available supply. That is why it 

is so important that we get capital into these institutions and get 

those markets working again. 

A dollar of capital produces about $12 of lending capacity. The 

Government, before I came into office, put about $200 billion of 

capital into banks. So that is about more than $2 trillion of lending 

capacity. Otherwise, it will not exist. Without that capital, you 

would have had lending capacity shrink by more than $2 trillion. 

As a result of this focus on the larger banks, you are right to say 

large banks are not the entire banking system. But they are about 

50 percent of loans and about three-quarters of assets in the banking system. Without stability in those institutions, the economy 

would be weaker. But community banks will play a critical role in 

this stuff. We have been moving very quickly to try to make sure 

their applications are processed. We have more people processing 

those applications. They are concerned, frankly, still about participating in this program. They are worried about the stigma that 

comes with participation. We need to make it more comfortable for 

them to come and not feel they are going to be stigmatized and penalized for coming for capital. 

As I said in my remarks, we believe we still have something a 

bit north of $100 billion in uncommitted resources available to deploy to these objectives and get credit flowing again. We are going 

to use that as carefully as we can. At this point, we have no plans 

to come to the Congress and ask for additional resources and authority. I do not know whether that is likely or not, but at this 

point, have no plans to do so. 

But, again, our biggest imperative, because the economy is still 

going through such a challenging period, is to make sure we are 

doing as much as we can so that the financial system is not going 

to slow recovery. 

Senator MENENDEZ. Well, I hear your qualifier at this point, and 

I understand that. And these are uncertain times. But I have to be 

honest with you. Some of us—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. You would like us to come. 

Senator MENENDEZ. I always welcome you before the Committee. 

I do not about coming to ask for money for TARP. I will be honest 

with you on that. But, no, some of us who have supported this because we thought it was essential to, you know, strengthen the fi-
22 

nancial institutions, not because for their sake, but for what it 

meant to the overall economy and to Main Street. But that Main 

Street is still having challenges, is still not getting access to the 

credit that it seeks, even if that is overall reduced, but there is still 

a credit demand. And, therefore, the school teacher who has got a 

720 credit score cannot get a car that she needs to get to work. And 

the small contractor who comes up to me and says, ‘‘I do not have 

my credit line at my supplier anymore, and I cannot get a credit 

line and get the supplies to do the work that keeps the people I 

have employed.’’ 

That is what I am worried about. And we may have created $2 

trillion of credit capacity. I do not know that we have used that 

credit capacity that you described or that the institutions have 

used that credit capacity in this period of time. 

Secretary GEITHNER. No; I agree. But I think you said it exactly 

right. The real risk to the economy is that you had viable businesses that were relatively prudent and did not overextend themselves, get forced to shrink or close because there is not credit 

available for them to keep operating. That is a principal challenge 

we face still, something we have got to keep working very hard at, 

and that is why I believe these programs are so important. We 

need to make sure that banks are willing to take capital where necessary, that they raise capital, and we get these securities markets 

working better. And we have got a pretty effective set of programs 

in place, but they are just beginning, and we have got to keep at 

it to make sure they are working to the maximum extent we can. 

Senator MENENDEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Senator Martinez, Mel. 

Senator MARTINEZ. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and, 

Secretary Geithner, again, thanks for your service. I agree with 

Senator Menendez. You are serving at very difficult and unusual 

times. But let me follow up on Senator Menendez’s question and 

the liquidity of local banks, the very problem he is talking about, 

the local contractor, and that sort of thing. 

What I hear from bankers when I ask them, because that is the 

other side of the equation, they tell me, ‘‘Regulators are telling me 

not to lend. Regulators are telling me to increase my reserves. Regulators are telling me to grow my capital. But we are fine. We 

could be lending more, except they are coming back in 2 months 

and they told us that we better not have so many real estate 

loans.’’ 

Well, in Florida, that is like telling a man in a desert that you 

cannot drink water. What are we going to do? What is the issue 

there? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I am not—because I have heard those concerns from banks across the country as well, and I know it is something that the supervisors at the national level are trying to make 

sure they get the balance right. I am not sure they have the balance right, but it is their responsibility to get that balance right. 

I think it is important to recognize that we are in the middle of 

a financial crisis that was caused by banks being overextended. 
23 

Senator MARTINEZ. Well, maybe that is when they should have 

been telling them to lend less, not now when the system needs the 

money. 

Secretary GEITHNER. That is true, but it is a difficult balance. 

But I think we have a very diverse banking system. Many banks 

came into this with very strong capital levels, and they will be 

growing and expanding, and they will be taking business away 

from their weak competitors. But there are some institutions and 

banks that probably got themselves a little overextended, and they 

are going to probably have to be a little more conservative going 

forward. There is probably no way around that, and we do not 

want to have a financial system where those institutions are kept 

going on a level that they are not going to be viable over time, and 

that is why the balance is so difficult. 

But I agree with you about the concern. I hear it, too. Supervisors put out a statement in November trying to be responsive to 

this concern. But I do not feel like it has gotten better. 

Senator MARTINEZ. It has not. 

Secretary GEITHNER. And it is something that I know they are 

trying to be attentive to. 

Senator MARTINEZ. Well, I appreciate your continuing to pursue 

that issue, and just as a follow-up to Senator Bunning, the issue 

of the board of directors of these car companies, you know, in an 

unusual time like this, it is difficult to know exactly where the fiduciary responsibility lies. However, I still continue to believe that 

their fiduciary responsibility lies to the stockholders of the company, first and foremost, and, therefore, they should be acting as 

independent of Government as they possibly could, without Government pressure to take actions or whatever. But it troubles me 

when I hear that the CEO has been removed by directions from 

Government or that boards of directors are being told that they are 

not going to be staying on when the new directors are going to 

come. That I find troubling, and I would like a comment from you 

on that. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I understand those concerns, but let me try 

to explain the framework we are using for making these judgments. 

When institutions get themselves to the point where they need 

to come to the Government for assistance to restructure and there 

is no alternative for them, then it is our obligation to make sure 

they have a strong enough board and management so they are able 

to emerge from this viable and without Government assistance over 

time. That is a very important obligation we have, but I agree with 

you completely that we do not want to have the Government involved in day-to-day management decisions. We want to structure 

these arrangements so that we get out as quickly as possible. And 

where we take action to help strengthen boards or management 

those new directors are going to have a fiduciary obligation to 

shareholders. That will be their obligation going forward. 

Senator MARTINEZ. Let me move to another area, which is TARP 

transparency. Senator Warner and I and Senator Brown have filed 

Senate bill 910 which has to do with TARP transparency, the idea 

being that we want to make it readily available, the information 

where the funds have gone, how much of them remains, who has 
24 

gotten them, what they are doing with them. And I hope you could 

support that type of legislation. I think it gives the public a great 

deal of confidence about what we are doing in Government today 

with so many incredible amounts of dollars, of their tax dollars. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, I am committed to giving as much 

transparency in the public as we can and happy to take a close look 

at those proposals. And it is very important to me that we have as 

much explanation and detail in the public domain about the financial costs of these programs, their objectives, how much is being 

spent, how much is still available, what they are achieving, and 

what they are not achieving. And so I very much share that objective. 

Senator MARTINEZ. Mr. Chairman, I would like to put in the 

record a letter from a number of consumer groups that are very 

supportive of this legislation and have that be part of today’s 

record. 

Chairman DODD. It will be so included. 

Senator MARTINEZ. Finally, let me just say that, with the remaining moments I have, one of the issues that I still see out 

there, like the credit problem with banks and local banks, is the 

TALF issue. There are areas of securitizing money that would be 

very, very helpful, again, to the system, to put people to work and 

back to work. Two of the areas that would be very, very important 

in my State, and I think in many others, is the area of the timeshare industry where securitizing their mortgages would be of tremendous help to bring liquidity. You know, they have a marketplace where people want to buy these units; however, they cannot 

do the financing because there is no secondary market for them at 

this moment in time. 

The second one is floor planning for recreational boats, 

watercraft. This is a huge industry in my State from the manufacturing to the sale to the use, and, again, there you see businesses 

that have a good business track record and what-not, but simply 

cannot stay open because their floor plans are being closed. 

These are two areas that I know might seem frivolous, but these 

are job-creating industries in a State like Florida, and I would implore your attention to extending TALF so that these industries 

could be participants in that, just like we have done for car floor 

planning and some of the other areas, credit card and other areas 

where we have done it. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I would be happy to take a careful 

look at that and talk to the Fed about what is possible in that area. 

I do want to underscore, as you did, that this is a very effective 

program, very important program. It would not be possible without 

the Federal Reserve. Treasury cannot do it on its own. We would 

like to make sure it works to the maximum benefit of this broad 

objective and make sure it is getting credit flowing again. 

So I agree with you about the importance of the program and I 

am happy to take a careful look at those suggestions. 

Senator MARTINEZ. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you, Senator, very much. 

Senator Brown. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
25 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us. I want to follow up on 

a couple of questions that Senator Bunning mentioned about the 

auto industry. News reports tell us that in the GM plans and their 

restructuring that they are now working through with the UAW to 

close 16 plants in the United States and cut more than 20,000 jobs. 

The same reports tell us that the company is planning to increase 

imports from plants in Mexico, South Korea, and China. The emphasis has been especially on China, a country where GM has a 

major presence, they do a lot of car assembly and production there 

and sell to that market. But now they are talking about closing 

plants down here and opening plants in China and selling them 

back. You and the automobile task force will decide whether to 

grant GM billions more in loans on top of the $13.4 billion. 

What gives here? The overall plan that you have to approve, you 

have to show—you need a viable plan overall to approve. What 

gives here? What is going on here? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, Senator, you know, it is a difficult 

balance. I think our objective is, the President’s objective, to try to 

make sure that we help facilitate a restructuring that will leave 

this firm in existence, save it from bankruptcy, and allow it to operate over time as a viable company without Government support. 

That is what we are trying to do, and we are doing exceptional 

things to make that possible. 

But I do not believe that we can do that and also be involved in 

making detailed decisions about how they run their business and 

that is the balance we are trying to strike. We are trying to make 

sure those decisions are left to the board and management. We 

leave our role to try to make sure that the overall plan is sufficiently strong and that it is going to leave them viable so that the 

taxpayers’ interest will be protected. 

Senator BROWN. So are you raising—if it was a firestorm in this 

country when we give billions to banks and they pay huge bonuses, 

you have not seen anything yet for what is going to happen if we 

put billions into auto companies and they shut down plants in this 

country and open plants in China at $1 an hour or less. 

Are you pushing back on the auto industry and the restructuring? Is the Government representing taxpayers and representing workers and communities pushing back on their including anything like this plan to shut down plants in the United 

States and move them abroad and open plants and produce and 

sell back here? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, again, Senator, I think just to be 

probably fair to the facts in this case, I probably should come back 

to you with more detail on exactly—— 

Senator BROWN. Well, we do not know the facts yet. We only 

know that GM told us that—I remember as a kid, I remember 

reading that Charles Wilson—an Ohioan, I would add—CEO of 

General Motors said, ‘‘What is good for GM is good for the United 

States,’’ and vice versa, however he said that. It is an interesting 

point to make. But when we asked GM, they simply said, ‘‘We are 

not going to use tax dollars to open plants in China,’’ which really 

means absolutely nothing. They are not going to use these tax dollars—or these dollars to open plants in China. 
26 

So we do not really know, but we are counting you as representatives of this Government—and I understand GM—I mean, GM 

helped to push through permanent normal trade relations with 

China. They write the rules. Then they say, ‘‘Well, the only way we 

can compete is to go to China. Sorry. Those are the rules of 

globalization,’’ even though their CEO is wandering the hall in the 

House and Senate getting votes one by one by one for this trade 

policy. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I just want to underscore the scale 

of what we are doing. Because the President is committed to trying 

to make sure these firms emerge viable over time, that they are 

saved from the prospect of going out of existence, we are doing exceptional things to try to help facilitate a restructuring that would 

not be possible without the Government playing a temporary role. 

Senator BROWN. I get that. Let me ask—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. And that will save thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs in this country. 

Senator BROWN. I get the economic argument, but I also get 

that—well, let me take it from another direction, if you are doing 

exceptional and extraordinary things. 

Chairman Bernanke said last year that China’s currency misalignment is ‘‘an effective subsidy.’’ Then-Senator Obama sponsored 

legislation that currency manipulation is a subsidy that should be 

offset with duties. The analysis in Treasury’s April 15th report on 

exchange rate shows China is cheating by manipulating the currency. But then your report does not make the conclusion that 

China is manipulating its currency. 

The Treasury and the Government seem to push back on this 

whole currency issue, so you are saying—you are implying, GM is 

saying—you have not affirmed that, but GM is saying, well, we— 

I think they are saying, ‘‘In order to cut costs and stay competitive 

and save American jobs, we have got to cut American jobs and open 

plants in China and send them back.’’ But then you are unwilling 

to stand up on currency and deal with that subsidy that it makes 

it more attractive for China—for GM to go to China and sell cars 

back to the United States. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I do not agree with that characterization. That is not our policy with respect to China. 

Senator BROWN. Which is not your policy? 

Secretary GEITHNER. What you just described. Now—— 

Senator BROWN. Which part, the currency part or the GM going 

to China is not your policy? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, I think neither are our policy, but just 

on the China case, let me explain what the report laid out. It is 

an important issue. China has allowed their exchange rate to appreciate significantly. They are intervening substantially less. They 

are committed to moving to a more flexible system over time. They 

are moving very actively to help stimulate domestic demands. 

Their economy is growing more rapidly as a growing market for 

U.S. exports and other markets around the world. 

We are focused on this issue. We are going to continue to encourage further progress, but that is what the report says—— 

Senator BROWN. Tell me how you define progress on their currency floating. Is it 3 percent, 5 percent in the last 5 years? 
27 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, again, if you look back, there has 

been very substantial change over the last 2 years. They are committed to further evolution. We want to encourage that. 

Senator BROWN. Mr. Secretary, what does ‘‘substantial’’ mean in 

percentage—I mean, economists say 40 percent valuation differential in the Chinese currency versus the floating world currency, 

floating currencies around the world. What percent is—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. I believe what has happened has been substantial in percentage terms relative to what people estimate as 

the potential undervaluation of their currency. But—— 

Senator BROWN. I guess I really want something more than ‘‘substantial,’’ if you can at least—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. We would like it to be more—— 

Senator BROWN. No, I would like it to be more—I would like a 

figure. ‘‘Substantial’’ to you probably does not mean ‘‘substantial’’ 

to me. Is it 2, is it 5, is it 20, is it 30? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, I do not want to misstate the numbers, but those are just facts. I would be happy to provide—— 

Senator BROWN. OK. I would like that. I do not think it is fair 

to characterize it as ‘‘substantial,’’ because I think the numbers are 

a small percentage of the 40, but—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. Look, I understand your concern on this. 

That is why we are working to encourage further progress, because 

it is important to us, to the administration, to the President, and 

to the country. We want it to happen. And we are going to continue 

to encourage it. But, again, what China is doing today is playing 

a very constructive, stabilizing role as the world goes through the 

worst recession in decades. And so you need to look at the full picture in terms of what they are doing to strengthen their economy 

and their commitment to further evolution. 

Senator BROWN. I have looked at the full picture for 10 years, 

Mr. Secretary, and I have not seen the progress. and I do think 

they play a major role. I appreciate what they have done on their 

own stimulus and encouraging consumption in their country. They 

came to the table pretty late on that. There are lots of other issues 

there. But I thank, Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you. If my colleagues will recall, the 

very first hearing that I held as Chairman of this Committee in 

January of 2007—or maybe February—was on currency manipulation, and your predecessor was the first witness before the Committee. So this issue is with us. And I have just got to say, Mr. Secretary—and then I am going to move right on to Senator Corker— 

when you see what access we have to Chinese markets with U.S. 

products, it is terribly frustrating, to put it mildly. I saw the other 

day where 20 American films are allowed to be shown in China. 

That is the quota. And I do not know the number of automobiles, 

but it is rather limited of what we can export into that market. So 

in addition to the currency manipulation, this would be more 

warmly received, understanding where China is, if, in fact, they 

were willing to take a lot more of our products on their shelves 

than we do of theirs. So it is just a sore, sore point with a lot of 

our people. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I am nodding because I agree with you, of 

course, about that important imperative. 
28 

Chairman DODD. Senator Corker. 

Senator CORKER. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and, Mr. Secretary, 

thank you for being here. I do appreciate the timely forwarding of 

your testimony last night. I hope that will continue. I very much 

appreciate that. Just a couple editorial comments. 

On the AIG situation, we have heard now for 6 or 8 months that 

there is no resolution authority to deal with that entity. My guess 

is that on a one-off basis, if you were to ask for that, instead of 

pumping additional monies into a company that really has turned 

out to be a honey pot for many of the institutions that have relationships with it, my guess is that—we have had numbers of vehicles come through this body. That would pass pretty quickly. So I 

do not know why the Treasury has not asked for conservatorship 

ability to deal with that entity. Again, my guess is it would be like 

100 to zip in the Senate and 435 to zip in the House. 

So I think continuing to hide behind not having resolution authority for AIG and continuing to pay out 100 cents on the dollar, 

which we all know is a major honey pot for many, my guess is we 

would work with you to give you that authority. And I know you 

have particular authorship of that. My guess is you would like to 

see it through in an orderly way. So I hope that—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. We will work on that that, Senator, and 

could I just say we have provided draft legislation—— 

Senator CORKER. For overall resolution authority, but I think if 

you came to us today, as, by the way, Paulson did with Fannie and 

Freddie on a one-off basis, my guess is it would be passed. So I do 

not think that argument holds water anymore. I think you could 

get the authority for this one organization very, very quickly. 

So to me, there is something else driving—something else is driving this, if not—and one other editorial comment. I know that we 

are going to have auto hearings later, and I realize that those negotiations are underway now. I do want to offer one comment. I know 

that you all have offered ownership stakes in most unusual ways. 

I imagine there are streets in our country where there is a retiree, 

part of the greatest generation, those people who came before us, 

that bought GM bonds thinking that that was their ticket to retirement. And sitting right beside them, a neighbor next door might 

be a UAW worker that is being treated totally differently. 

The way this GM buyout is now set with 50-percent ownership 

by the taxpayers, 40-percent ownership, 39 and change, by the 

UAW, and yet the bondholders basically becoming toast, to me is 

something that is very politically, philosophically motivated in a 

way that shows no balance. 

Now, I think most of us are aware up here that once this is done, 

according to Steve Rattner, you are still going to have $80 billion 

in debt at GM. I am not sure the public is fully aware of that yet. 

So after the bond exchange, there is going to be $80 billion in debt 

left, which is more debt than we began with. GM has $62 billion 

when this all began. OK? And so my guess is you are going to have 

to make additional offers. The company cannot sustain $80 billion 

in debt. 

I am asking that you consider fairness when you make the offer, 

again, because there is going to have to be another exchange offer 

made, that you treat other retirees that have invested in these 
29 

bonds, thinking that GM would be something that they could—and 

not do it in such a politically motivated way. I have heard that 

there are concerns about strikes. I cannot imagine a greater public 

relations disaster ever happening. It would be a strike by the UAW 

if this sort of non-pro-rated bankruptcy structure is not held to. 

But I would just hope you will consider that. 

Let me just move on. Those are a couple—and I hear the word 

‘‘trying.’’ You are artfully using the word ‘‘trying’’ to stay out of 

those decisions. Look, I know that Fritz was going over to see 

Treasury and the UAW the day after meeting with us a couple 

weeks ago to make these major decisions. I hope that they will be 

done based on what is best for the company and not just certain 

parts of the country. 

Let me just move to the resolution—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, you are not asking me to respond 

now, but as you said at the beginning of your question, I think it 

is very important we go through these things, Mr. Chairman, once 

we are through the first—because you are talking about a set of 

prospective concerns which we will probably best address when we 

see the package that is announced, and then we can talk through 

that. But, of course, we want to see a fair and balanced package 

that produces a viable company over the longer term. And I understand your point. I just want to say, not responding to your concern 

and suggestions, it is not because I don’t think they are justified. 

It is just that I think it is not possible to do it justice until we get 

to the other side of this. 

Senator CORKER. Well, I would hope you would not deem the 

first offer ‘‘fair,’’ and I would hope that you would intervene in 

some fashion, because it is obviously a strong, philosophical and political motivation when you look at $27 billion in debt being worth 

4.5 percent of the company and $10.5 billion being worth 39 percent of the company. You know, most students in our country 

would consider that to be unfair. 

But let me just move on to a bigger philosophical issue—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. As long as you let me come back and talk 

about that once we get through the first. 

Senator CORKER. Perfect. I would love to. And that is why we 

have not pressed. We know there is still, again, $80 billion that has 

got to be dealt with after all this occurs. I think the taxpayers 

probably would be alarmed to know that, but there is still a lot to 

be done. 

On the resolution authority, you came before us in sort of a private meeting, but then since had sort of a public hearing in the 

House talking about your resolution authority. And I have to tell 

you, I was greatly perplexed by the notion of giving the Treasury 

the ability in perpetuity to, in essence, codify TARP. I think on entities that pose a systemic risk, what you have wanted to do is to 

have the ability that you now have under TARP in perpetuity for 

those entities and to actually designate certain entities as those 

that pose systemic risk, so there would be a bright line. 

Sheila Bair came in the other day with something that was actually very market based and I think was applauded by many, certainly by me here, which basically gave her the resolution authority to basically unwind these companies in an orderly way. 
30 

Huge philosophical differences in those approaches, and, in essence, the possibility of causing systemically risky computers to be 

like Fannie and Freddie because the public would know which entities those were. I wonder if you might respond to that. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I would like to respond, Senator. We are 

not going to do that, and we are not going to take that risk for exactly the reasons you said, because it would create the expectation 

that there is a set of institutions that will enjoy Government support without conditions in the future and would leave our system 

more risky, and re-create a kind of more vulnerable system in the 

future. We are not going to do that. 

Senator CORKER. So you are withdrawing that offer? 

Secretary GEITHNER. No. 

Senator CORKER. You are withdrawing that proposal? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I am saying what you described as our proposal was not our proposal, and we would not design a proposal 

that had those risks, because I could not support it and you would 

not support it. But what I was going to say is that—let me step 

back for 1 second. 

The proposal we have made and we will make for resolution authority will be based on and modeled on what Congress designed 

for the FDIC, and what was designed for small banks and thrifts, 

not for a crisis like this, but has not caught up to the dramatic evolution in the structure of our system. We need to take that model 

and modify it so it works for a large complex institution built 

around a bank or an institution like AIG could pose broader risk 

to the system. But the authority we are looking for will be replicated very closely on the authority you have given the FDIC, 

same basic balance, same benefit, same constraints, same checks 

and balances, same protections against it being misused. 

That is the model we are looking at, and I think that you will 

find that proposal to have all the benefits of the FDIC model and 

some of the same concerns and constraints in that model. 

Senator CORKER. I know I am out of time. I look forward to a 

second round. Thank you. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Senator Tester. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

being here today, Secretary Geithner. 

Through your conversations with the FDIC and with your dealings with the stress test, what is your opinion on community 

banks? Do you believe that—I know you talked about opening the 

credit window to them again. Do you believe that they need to raise 

significant capital to remain solvent? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, again, we have 9,000 banks in the 

country. Many of those small community banks, their circumstances are very diverse. On average, they came into this crisis 

with, again, more healthy capital positions, higher levels of capital, 

and a better quality of capital, because they were generally more 

careful. But in parts of the country with high unemployment, 

where the focus of most of the real estate trauma has been concentrated, they are under a lot of pressure, and supervisors responsible for those institutions are working closely with them to make 
31 

sure that where they need to be strong and restructure they are 

doing that. 

Senator TESTER. Well, I think it was the Chairman who earlier 

talked about 940 banks that needed $200 billion. Do you think that 

is the exception, not the rule? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I did not look at the details of that 

study, but I would caution anybody to draw any conclusions from 

a study published in that way, because it is very hard for people 

to sort of step back without access to confidential supervisory information and provide a reasonable picture of health and weakness 

across the system. So I would not encourage you to draw any conclusions from that particular report. 

Senator TESTER. So you do not anticipate any sort of wave of failures in that sector. 

Secretary GEITHNER. No. I would say that. Again we are going 

through the most challenging financial crisis in decades. Community banks will not be immune to that. You have already seen significant distress across the banking system, outside the major institutions, and our challenge is to make sure that is managed carefully so there is less damage to the communities affected. 

Senator TESTER. What kind of participation do you anticipate 

community banks will utilize the TARP dollars? Can you give me 

a percentage of those 8,000? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I do not have a sense of the magnitude, and 

as I said and I am sure you have heard this. A lot of banks have 

withdrawn their applications. A lot of banks are reluctant to come. 

They feel like the capital is stigmatized, will come with conditions 

that will make it hard for them to run their business, and we need 

to try to counteract that because the insurance this capital provides 

is not valuable unless people are willing to come take it. 

Senator TESTER. All right. But you do believe that there are adequate resources out there with the community banks. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I do. I do. 

Senator TESTER. OK. The commercial mortgages, the information 

is that the Fed will only buy the AAA-rated mortgages. 

Secretary GEITHNER. That is right. 

Senator TESTER. How is that going to be helpful for a lot of those 

community banks? Because the commercial mortgages is actually 

where the rub is, in my neck of the woods. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well you are absolutely right to say that 

this facility cannot solve all those problems. It will not relieve the 

market of these. A lot of the challenges lie ahead. But, you know, 

we cannot take on all that risk. It does not make sense for the taxpayers through the Fed and the Treasury to take on all that risk. 

We are trying to find the right balance that helps get the markets 

going again without the taxpayer taking on too much risk. 

But doing the AAA piece of this can help get the rest of the markets going again. There is no market without the AAA piece finding 

a financer. And, again, where those programs are now operational, 

they are having a meaningful difference on opening up those markets. 

Senator TESTER. OK. I want to touch a little bit on TARP repayment. I have got a minute and 20 seconds, and you could burn this 

with your answer with not a problem at all. But could you concisely 
32 

tell me what the Treasury’s definition of ‘‘well capitalized’’ is as far 

as repayment of the TARP dollars? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, under the program the Fed designed, 

under this so-called stress test capital assessment, they said institutions had to have a Tier 1 regulatory capital ratio of 6 and a Tier 

1 common equity ratio of 4 even in the more adverse loss you might 

face in a deeper recession. That is the ratio the Fed established 

under that program. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Real quickly—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. Just for the largest 19 banks. The supervisors were very clear that for the rest of the system they will leave 

the existing framework in place. 

Senator TESTER. OK. All right. Very quickly, not getting into 

trade policy, but to kind of dovetail on what Senator Brown asked 

about, and before, I will tell you that I have been—I have wanted 

to keep the auto manufacturing business in this country because 

I think it has been an important part of our history and an important part of our manufacturing based, and I do not want to lose it. 

On the other hand, trade policies aside, just as a dirt farmer 

would see it, I will tell you that if we are putting taxpayers into 

a company that is going to transfer those jobs to China, I do not 

want to do it. Do you want to comment on that? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I understand your concern, and again, the 

reason why we are trying to figure out a way to help restructuring 

is because we want to preserve these companies as part of the 

American economy, and the substantial jobs they provide not just 

directly but through supplier relationships. And so we are going to 

do everything we can to make sure that they are going to emerge 

viable over the longer term. 

Senator TESTER. What about everything as far as keeping those 

jobs here? And I will tell you that there are some that would say, 

you know, if they can do it cheaper somewhere else, they will go 

somewhere else. I have got a decent standard of living. I want to 

keep it. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Of course, I completely agree, and, again, 

that is why we are engaged in this. And it is an enormously difficult set of challenges, but, you know, we will have a chance to 

come up and talk to the Committee and the Chairman about the 

plans as they are designed once we get through the June 1st date. 

Senator TESTER. I appreciate that, and I again want to thank 

you for being here today. 

I think it is important, Mr. Chairman, that we do this with regularity. I think it is very helpful. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Senator. Let me just say 

on that point, too, by the way—and Senator Corker raised the issue 

about the UAW. This is an industry 3 years ago that employed— 

three automakers—250,000 people, and the anticipation is it will 

be down to 90,000 pretty quickly. This is an industry that has been 

devastated in terms of employment. 

One suggestion on this I might make, we had—Senator Kohl had 

a conversation—I know, I was a witness to it—with Mr. Rattner 

about a plant in his State of Wisconsin, Mr. Secretary, and we 

would like to at least see where offers are made to companies, divisions and so forth. I think this may have been a supplier. I am not 
33 

sure which. But the decision was to pack it up and move it, I think 

to China, and at least the offer to say can you meet this, can you 

somehow—you know, before you just decide and make a decision to 

close it, give them a chance to determine whether or not they can 

compete or at least try to compete, those workers, before the decision is made to just close the operation down. It seems to me the 

minimum that we ought to do is that before making those decisions. 

Senator DeMint. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, Mr. Secretary, 

thank you for being here. I would just like to begin with a personal 

observation. I think until last year, most of us would agree that the 

traditional understanding of the role of the Secretary of the Treasury would be to manage the Federal Treasury, to manage the collection of revenues, the paying of debt, protect our general fund, 

and by doing that, protect the value and stability of our currency, 

all on the Government side of the equation. 

The frightening thing for me today is that you are speaking and 

we are questioning you as the Chief Executive Officer of America’s 

financial system, of our banks, of our largest auto company, of our 

largest insurance company. So we are playing right along. To me 

this is not a mission creep. This is a stampede of any traditional 

understanding of constitutional boundaries. 

Now, we could talk about this in the context that we had to do 

all this because we had a crisis, but we hear very little talk about 

any exit strategy and very little real understanding that at least 

what we are hearing on the ground, most of us, it is not working. 

And I will just repeat what we heard over here. In talking to my 

bankers, they do not understand. It does not make any common 

sense. We are throwing all this money, and they say, ‘‘You are 

tightening the reins on us.’’ The things we normally do to help our 

companies, our clients do business, roll over loans, allow them to 

defer payments, do interest-only, anything they do to change the 

terms of a loan red-flags it with our regulators, makes it nonperforming, and essentially brings down the value of all the loans they 

have. And it seems that instead of throwing money that we just 

need to use some common sense. But that is not my question. 

My bigger question gets back to this huge intervention in the private market, how we are going to get out. When we were told we 

had to vote for this TARP bill or the whole world economic system 

would collapse the next day if we did not go buy all these toxic assets—of course, you know we never bought the toxic assets, the 

world economic system did not climb, but we still have the money 

on the line. But we were told, ‘‘Don’t worry. It is a loan. The Government is actually going to make money on these TARP funds.’’ 

So my question to you is: As you begin to speak of, OK, we are 

going to allow these banks to pay this money back now, how much 

money in the next year and 5 years—what are your estimates at 

this point? As this money comes in, how much is going to be returned to the general fund in the next year or 5 years? 

Secretary GEITHNER. A very important question, and hard to 

make that judgment now. The way the scoring rules work, as you 

know, the CBO and OMB make an estimate of what the potential 
34 

loss might be or credit cost might be over time. That is just a very 

conservative general estimate, I can’t tell right now. 

If we are successful in getting this economy back on track and 

helping repair the system, then there is a very, very good chance, 

very substantial probability that that money will come back with 

substantial interest and return. But the Government is taking risk 

here. We are taking risk because there is no other way to help get 

the economy back on track. We are taking risk because the markets will not take risk now, where they would normally take risk. 

So I do not want to underestimate the amount of risk in this, but 

these are carefully designed to minimize risk to the taxpayer, and 

there is a reasonable prospect that this money will come back—— 

Senator DEMINT. If over the next 6 months $50 billion comes 

back, will $50 billion go into the general fund of the United States? 

Secretary GEITHNER. The way the TARP is designed—and I did 

not design this, but the way it is designed is every dollar that 

comes back goes into the general fund, but that does still create additional headroom under the $700 billion authority for us to make 

capital investments. So we have the ability to still use the $700 billion if we think there is a strong case for doing that, but the way 

the program works is a dollar comes in, goes to the general fund, 

but still creates additional room for us to make a new—— 

Senator DEMINT. So your understanding of what we did is that 

the Treasury now has $700 billion that it can use permanently rotating in and out of the capital markets as you see fit? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I am not quite sure of permanent, but you 

are right. The way it was designed as our lawyers look at it—and 

I think this is clear in the interpretation of CBO and others, is that 

what I described is the way it works. A dollar comes back, goes in 

the general fund, and that leaves us with the ability to make an 

additional commitment going forward. And that flexibility is important. 

And just to emphasize what I said before you came in, I think, 

it is very important that these things be designed so that it is very 

likely that banks want to repay as quickly as possible, want to replace our investments as quickly as possible, that it is not economic 

for them to continue to use the Government assistance. The Fed 

programs are designed that way. Our programs are going to be designed that way, because we want these things to diminish and 

taxpayers to be repaid as soon as conditions normalize. 

Senator DEMINT. But instead of backing out of this whole intervention, you see now, instead of fixing the problem of the banks 

that were too big to fail, the Treasury is going to be a permanent 

player in the financial system? 

Secretary GEITHNER. No. I would not support that. I would not 

want that to happen. We are going to do what it takes to fix this 

system. We are going to do no more than what it takes. We are 

going to try to get out as quickly as possible because it is not going 

to be healthy for the system or the economy for the prospect of a 

sustained Government involvement in either the automobile industry or the financial sector as a whole. 

What we did, I am sure, was essential and necessary. But for it 

to work, we want it to be temporary and exit quickly. 
35 

Senator DEMINT. Are you working on a plan to show us how you 

are going to move out of all of this market, the ownership of General Motors, the ownership of AIG, all the money in the private 

banking—you have got a plan? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, as I said to Ranking Member Shelby at the beginning, this is a very important issue to me. We think 

about this a lot, and there will be a time when we will be able to 

come to you and say here is how the unwinding process will work. 

But it is too early to do that now. You know the economy is still 

shrinking. The financial system is still quite damaged. And we will 

get to that point, but we are not quite there yet. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Senator Bennet is next. 

Senator BENNET. You caught me by surprise, Mr. Chairman. I 

appreciate it. 

Mr. Secretary, welcome and thank you for everything you are 

doing. I sent you a letter last Friday with my colleague Mark Udall 

and Betsy Markey from the House about a bank in northeast Colorado called New Frontier, which has failed and is in the hands of 

the FDIC right now, and spent Saturday morning in a room of hundreds of farmers and ranchers and small business people and community bankers. And from their perspective, if the argument is 

made that AIG was too big to fail, this New Frontier would have 

been too big to fail. It already has failed. It has had huge implications across the region, and the local banks, community banks, are 

saying two things: one, ‘‘The reserve requirements are making it 

harder for us to lend, not easier to lend.’’ You have been over that 

ground today, and I accept the fact that part of what got us here 

in the first place is the credit was too easy. But it is a balance, and 

especially when you have got an environment like the one the people in northeast Colorado are facing. 

The second thing they are saying is, ‘‘We have applied for TARP 

money, but we did not get an enthusiastic response about that.’’ 

And I guess I would ask you whether or not in a context like that— 

I am not asking about the specific case, although we have in the 

letter. In a context like that whether it is appropriate for the regulators to look at a situation and say this is a good candidate for 

TARP money because in this place at this time, this institution is, 

in effect, too big to fail because it is dragging the entire regional 

economy down with it. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I think you are right, it is a difficult balance, a difficult consideration. The TARP program was designed 

and the criteria designed by the supervisors, by my predecessor, to 

only be open to what they call viable institutions in the eyes of the 

supervisors. The FDIC does—— 

Senator BENNET. I am sorry, Mr. Secretary. I am not talking 

about getting TARP money into the failed banks. 

Secretary GEITHNER. No; I understand. But the challenge is to 

those institutions at the margin where some additional assistance 

would help, and in that context, we designed a process—I did not 

design it, but designed a process where the supervisor would make 

a judgment about whether they met the terms for eligibility. 
36 

The FDIC does have flexibility in those cases where the impact 

would be very severe to make a different judgment, and they have 

some discretion in that complex. They have to use that carefully. 

But I think you are absolutely right that costs of failure by what 

may seem to be modest institutions can be very substantial in 

parts of the country and parts of the community. And we need to 

be careful, supervisors have to be careful that they are not sustaining the nonviable over time, but still providing assistance 

where it could be helpful. And I think it is a difficult balance, and 

they are not going to get it right every time, but they are being 

careful. 

You know, in any financial crisis, there are some people who 

want the Government to take on a bunch more risk, and there are 

a bunch of people who do not want us to take any risk. And that 

is fundamentally what these choices are about. And in a world 

which is so uncertain, the path of the economy is going to be so 

uncertain that it is going to be even harder to make those judgments. 

But I understand your concern, and I believe the supervisors are 

trying to be as careful and sensitive as they can. 

Senator BENNET. I think part of the issue for people living in 

Colorado is that they can accept the fact that there is a balance to 

the risk and to the Government’s involvement in the economy. The 

problem comes when their perspective is that we are only worried 

about the risk of these institutions on Wall Street, not about the 

institutions on Main Street. And I think that it is really important 

that the administration continues to drive policies that are really 

going to have an effect for small businesses in places like Colorado 

for our community banks. Every month we have come here and had 

testimony from somebody, and what you have heard, what people 

who have sat where you are sitting have heard from both sides of 

the aisle is the same thing, which is our community banks do not 

feel like they are participants in this program, that they are able 

to lend, that they are able to roll over credit or do other kinds of 

things. 

And, again, it is a different credit environment, but that does not 

mean that we should not have as strong a focus on those institutions around our Main Street businesses as we do these institutions, important institutions. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I completely agree. You know, we have 

given capital to more than 500 banks. Now we have 8,000 banks. 

A bunch of those banks have withdrawn applications because of the 

concerns I mentioned, but as I said, I announced 2 weeks ago that 

we want to reopen the window and make more capital available. 

We want it to be open for a longer period of time for exactly the 

reason you pointed out, which is that they are going to—small community banks, which are responsible for a disproportionate share 

of lending to small businesses. Small businesses account, as you 

know, for most of the job creation in the country. So that is a very 

effective way to help support recovery, and that is why we are 

making sure these programs are expanded for them. 

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you very much, Senator. I appreciate 

that. 
37 

Senator Vitter. 

Senator VITTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thanks, Mr. Secretary, for being here. I want to go back to an 

issue you touched on with Senator DeMint, which is that when 

TARP funds are paid back to the Treasury, the common understanding on Capitol Hill—I think this is very fair to say—is that 

that would be paid to reduce the Federal debt and would be a permanent reduction of the initial $700 billion. 

That is not how Treasury is interpreting it or putting it into 

practice, and a lot of us are very concerned about that, certainly 

me. Senator Gregg has written you. Many others think that this 

is clearly contrary to the law and to all the discussion we had on 

the topic when the law passed. 

I would like your response to that. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I wrote you a letter this morning 

or last night about just this issue. I am aware of that concern, but 

our reading of the law as designed—and we were very careful going 

over this again, and I checked with my colleagues at OMB—is consistent with what I put in the letter, which is as we read the law 

and as we think it was designed. It works the way I described, 

which is a dollar that comes back to us goes in the general fund, 

but that does create additional room to make another dollar of commitments. 

Now, we are going to use that flexibility very carefully. We are 

only going to do it if we think it is very important to this broad 

objective of trying to make sure there is credit flowing across the 

financial system in the economy. But we think the law was designed with that. I did not design the law, but that is what our fair 

reading of the statute is. I would be happy to talk through our interpretation with you, but we were pretty careful to check it. We 

went over it very carefully, and we think we are doing a fair reading of the law. 

Senator VITTER. If I can help explore that, one of the relevant 

provisions is 106(d). It says, ‘‘Revenues of and proceeds from the 

sale of troubled assets purchased under this Act, or from the sale, 

exercise, or surrender of warrants or senior debt instruments acquired under Section 113 shall be paid into the general fund of the 

Treasury for reduction of the public debt.’’ 

So what you are saying is while you do that—when a bank repays TARP funds, you do that with one hand, and then with the 

other hand, you take new public debt out to go up to the overall 

limit of $700 billion. 

Secretary GEITHNER. We may. We believe the law permits that, 

but—— 

Senator VITTER. In deficit spending, you do. 

Secretary GEITHNER. But let me read from the statute. You are 

right about 106(d), but 115(a) authorizes the Treasury to purchase 

troubled assets having aggregate purchases of up to $700 billion 

‘‘outstanding at any one time,’’ and Section 106(e) authorizes Treasury to continue to purchase troubled assets under commitments entered into by Treasury prior to the sunset date of the statute. 

So, again, we are happy to spend more time working through 

this with you, but that is our reading of the statute. I do not think 

we have it wrong, and we were careful and checked it again, and 
38 

I would be happy to come spend some time with you walking 

through it. But that is our sense of it. 

Senator VITTER. Well, let me just ask you this. Normally, when 

you read two parts of a law together, one of the rules of statutory 

construction is you do not read it in such a way as to make either 

part meaningless. 

Now, your reading of the law together makes 106(d) meaningless—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. No, I don’t—— 

Senator VITTER. ——because, yes, you pay down public debt for 

5 minutes, and then 5 minutes later you raise up public debt if, in 

fact, you issue the same amount of money to another institution. 

Secretary GEITHNER. But it does not quite work that way, Senator. The way I am suggesting is that these resources come back. 

If they come back, they go into the general fund. We have already 

had some modest repayments. That is what has happened to those 

repayments. We are left with authority still to go back and new 

commitments with that. But whether we choose to exercise on that 

depends on whether we think we can make a strong case that that 

is a sensible thing to do. 

Senator VITTER. But my point is if you exercise it, to the extent 

you exercise it you make the repayment to reduce public debt 

under 106(d) completely meaningless. 

Secretary GEITHNER. No, I do not think so because it means that 

temporarily—— 

Senator VITTER. You are certainly not—yes, you have reduced 

public debt for the 10 minutes between transactions. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I think I understand your concern 

and why this is uncomfortable. I did not design the statute. We are 

trying to apply it as fairly as possible. But I think what we are— 

and I think we are doing that in this case. But I believe that anytime we decide we are going to expand an existing commitment, 

make use of those repayments, we are going to have to make the 

case that it is consistent with the purpose of the statute and it has 

got the right balance of helping fix our system at acceptable risk 

to the taxpayer. So we will have to make that case every time. 

Senator VITTER. Well, again, I think it was clearly the understanding here during the debate that we would permanently reduce 

public debt with repayments, and that is not what is going on. My 

concern is that in a number of cases, this case, the fundamental 

question of how the money is used—I mean, you cited the statute 

to buy troubled assets. Of course, we have not started doing that 

yet. So that is a fundamental question. The question of whether it 

is for financial institutions or anyone else, now under the Bush administration went to manufacturing institutions. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Right. But as you said, those were not my 

judgments, Senator, and I am being very careful to make sure— 

and I will always be very careful—that we are applying the letter 

and spirit of the law in this case. And, again, we were very careful 

to check interpretations, so I talked last night again to the people 

that were there in October, in September, in drafting legislation 

and looking at its interpretation, and they confirmed our reading 

of that flexibility. 
39 

And I think it is important flexibility, and I think you want—I 

cannot tell you what you want. I think it is important that the 

Government with the right checks and balances has the ability, has 

that flexibility, because we are still in an enormously difficult, challenging, fragile period of time, and there may be circumstances 

where the necessary thing for the country is to use that authority 

carefully to support expanding these programs. Because without a 

financial system working better, our recovery will be arrested. It 

will be weaker than we like. Unemployment will be higher. There 

will be more damage to businesses. So I think the flexibility in the 

statute was well designed. We are going to use it very carefully. 

But I think it is there. 

Senator VITTER. Well, again, I think both your predecessor and 

you have been reading enormous flexibility into the statute that 

has not been there. I think the political rationale behind it is to 

avoid coming back to us for anything. My suggestion is you better 

be perfect in that execution because if you ever have to come back, 

you have built up with a lot of members complete distrust of the 

next step because of these interpretations. 

Secretary GEITHNER. We will never be perfect in execution on 

anything, but we will be exceptionally careful. And, Senator, as you 

know, we have crawling all over us the Congressional Oversight 

Panel, the GAO, the special SIGTARP, and we are being extraordinarily transparent and laying out to the public the terms of what 

we are doing so that people can make their judgments about 

whether these are effective or not. That is necessary and desirable, 

and I welcome that. But we will never be perfect, and we will make 

mistakes. We will get things wrong, But we will try to fix those, 

and we will be as open and honest as we can with you. And, again, 

I think the flexibility here is important, to retain it. We may not 

use it. But if we use it, we will do so with as much care and justification as we can. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you. Let me inform my colleagues, by 

the way, there is a vote that begins at 11:45, so we will be able 

to stay here close to another half an hour, I would say to my colleagues. So people keep that in mind as we go through so we can 

complete and get to everyone. 

I would just point out as well, by the way, having been involved 

back in September and several members of the Committee were, 

the major thrust here was to try and get resources—75 members 

of this body, many of whom knew the political consequences, but 

we decided to get resources out, to do what we could responding to 

it at the time. People can have a different look at history going 

back, but the idea was to provide some flexibility in all of that. And 

as I recall very specifically, that was the tension at the time. But 

I appreciate the discussion and debate. It is important. 

Senator Warner. 

Senator WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. 

Secretary, for being here and the time and energy you are putting 

into responding to our questions. 

I want to go back to where, actually, Chairman Dodd started the 

questioning about the issue of how we can help the small businesses—and that is a theme that obviously we have come back to 

repeatedly by a lot of my colleagues—and echo again a comment 
40 

made by the Chairman, and I think others, that the SBA programs, 

while good, many of the businesses do have concerns about them. 

And two, there has been enormous concern, I hear repeatedly 

around my State, that SBA programs that were announced in 

March, people are in the middle of May still waiting for the details 

so they can actually apply for the funds. 

So my hope is, with SBA Administrator Mills in place now, that 

we can get the details out. 

But one of the areas that you did touch on this morning that I 

think has great possibility is the question of buying up some of 

these small business loan portfolios to provide more headroom for 

banks. And this can cut across not only large banks, but go to what 

Senator Bennet mentioned in terms of some of our community 

banks. 

I know you have been talking about that generically, but is there 

any way you can put some specificity behind that? What your dollar goal is going to be? Something that we can then take back out 

and say there is going to be X billions of dollars that are going to 

be committed to buying up these loan portfolios? Which then, if the 

banks who were buying out those loan portfolios would replace that 

with additional loan capacity, oftentimes to already existing prior 

relationships, we would see great relief. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Right. When we initially announced this 

program, we said we would do up to $15 billion for this. It is possibly we could do more. And you are right, it is not operational yet. 

The reason for the delay is—and it is a 2-month delay, but these 

things are hard to get going—is there was just a huge amount of 

concern by the participants that they might be subjected to a whole 

bunch of conditions that they were not comfortable with. And so we 

have been trying to work through those concerns. 

I think we are close to resolving it. But the number we started 

with was 15, which is a pretty substantial fraction of the available 

loans outstanding. 

But you have got the objective exactly right. If you have an entity come purchase these off the balance sheet, then the bank has 

room to lend. So it has a direct increase in their capacity to lend. 

Senator WARNER. And will a piece of that detail be any—it will 

be the expectation, but will there actually be a requirement that 

says that if this additional headroom is created, the expectation is 

the bank will continue to lend out that new headroom back to 

small businesses? Or will it just be added capacity to the bank? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Well, that is the objective. We generally 

said that we want banks committing to explain to us how they are 

going to use the resources and what they are going to do to expected lending going forward. And at least for the large institutions, we have got reports that they are required to submit every 

month that people can see what they do. 

It is very hard, though, to force banks to lend. And it is—as you 

know, and I know you are not suggesting that. 

Some institutions may still feel like they are short in capital. 

And for those institutions, the impact of this program would be 

they are going to shrink less than they otherwise would. That still 

has the same benefit because then you still have more credit outstanding than would have otherwise been available. So you still 
41 

have $1 of capital—it is not quite this example—$1 of capital gets 

you $10 or $12 of additional lending capacity. And that is the 

power—— 

Senator WARNER. The faster we can get that out with more specificity, the better. 

I have got two other questions. One is, and there were two issues 

that Senator Reed raised earlier that I thought were quite appropriate. One, I want to associate myself with his comments around 

the concerns at OTS making policy about acquiring banks. 

But the second, and I know Senator DeMint and others have 

raised this issue about funds coming back. One of the questions 

you are going to soon have to confront are the questions of the values of the warrants. And my concern is as you take back—as these 

banks try to rush to the window to repay—and you have already 

seen a—you have already indicated some small banks have already 

done it. Some of the 19 are anxious to do it. 

My hope would be that rather than having a policy that is kind 

of one-off, and clearly you have to evaluate not taking back the 

money too quick if the bank is going to get itself back into trouble 

down the road. 

But my hope would be, particularly as we evaluate the warrant 

policy, that you have got a macro policy here that says is our goal 

at the end of the day to get back 90 cents on the dollar, 95 cents 

on the dollar, 100 cents on the dollar. But some macro approach 

that is going to say here is what we, the Congress and the American people, can expect back from these TARP investments. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Yes, I think that you are raising an important issue and I want to think about it a little bit before I come 

and explain to you what the policy is. But I think that, in general, 

our objective will be to sell these warrants as quickly as we can. 

We think that is probably going to be the best way to maximize 

value. And we have got a carefully designed program in place to 

make sure we are getting the best price for those warrants as possible. 

You are not suggesting this, but what I am a little reluctant to 

do is have the Government be in the position where we hold these 

investments for a long period of time, longer than is desirable, in 

the hopes we are going to maximize value. I think that we are 

probably unlikely to be better at that—I know that you are not 

suggesting that. 

Senator WARNER. But my hope would be that there are other options, other than simply selling them back to the institution. You 

could sell them back to some third party where you might have 

shared appreciation, where we are not calling the shots anymore 

but we could still gain some downstream appreciation. We are not 

taking all the risk. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I want to think about that. I will reflect on 

those concerns and am happy to come back and talk to you. 

Senator WARNER. One last point, and I apologize, Mr. Chairman, 

I am going over my time a bit. But I want to follow up on an issue 

that you raised and Senator Corker raised. 

I am very, very troubled by your comments on AIG and our obligation to maintain the 100 cents on the dollar in the counterparties. I think your comments about last fall, that the unwieldy reso-
42 

lution of Lehman caused great systemic damage. But I think we 

are in a very different space right now. 

And what I am unfortunately—what I believe I have heard is if 

we do not get one-off resolution authority on AIG and I would be 

happy to cosponsor with Senator Corker if you ask for that one-off 

resolution authority on AIG. And we can—I think we could get it 

through very quickly. 

But if we do not get that one-off resolution authority, and I— 

then by implication you are saying we are going to be continuing 

to pay out, even if we have taken down 50 percent of that exposure, 

the balance of that 50 percent of the exposure on these counterparties is still at 100 cents on the dollar. 

I just do not believe that the reaction of the market would be so 

traumatic at this point if we sent out warning signals that hey, we 

are thinking about not paying off 100 cents on the dollar on these 

counterparty obligations because everybody is taking haircuts on 

the AIG situation. And the notion that it is going to somehow affect 

the ability to get best value for the remaining insurance companies 

and all of the other challenges we have got with AIG, I just do not 

buy it. 

So I hope you will either challenge us to do that one-off with the 

AIG or think differently about the implication which—correct me 

if I am wrong—that otherwise we are stuck with paying off 100 

cents on the dollar on all of these counterparties for as long as we 

are in AIG. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I very much welcome the chance to work 

with this Committee on passing resolution authority as quickly as 

possible. 

Everything we do in AIG going forward we are going to try to 

balance what we think is the best way to reduce risk to the taxpayer over time and have the least potential damage to the financial system. It is an incredibly difficult balance. 

And it is very hard to know if we are going to get that balance 

right, but we kind of had a good experience with what happens 

when people got that balance wrong. 

Senator WARNER. But the balance at that point was in a moment 

of crisis. 

Secretary GEITHNER. The world is different today, but again 

many people would have said what you said—you did not say it at 

the time. But maybe they would have said what you just said in 

March of 2008, in August of 2008, in September of 2008. And it 

just proves how hard it is to know. 

Senator WARNER. But then by implication—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. If you get it wrong, you are taking a lot of 

risk. 

Senator WARNER. But by implication, then the taxpayer should 

be expected to continue to honor all of the AIG obligations, 100 

cents on the dollar, for as long as we are in AIG. Is that not—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. I think, Senator, I would say it differently. 

What my obligation is, again, is to try to manage through this incredibly difficult problem in a way that minimizes losses to the taxpayer and minimizes broader risk of damage to the rest of the financial system because, as we saw last year, the effects of getting 

that judgment wrong are deeply traumatic to people who were 
43 

careful and responsible. Unemployment is substantially higher, 

pension values substantially lower. Businesses failed across the 

country in part because people got that balance wrong. 

I do not want—my obligation is not to protect the counterparties 

of AIG. I would not give a penny to AIG to protect the counterparties of AIG. What I care about is trying to make sure that we reduce the risk of loss to the taxpayer and we reduce the risk of 

avoidable damage to the fabric of confidence in our financial system 

because of the effect it has on pension values, on business viability, 

on the cost of credit, on the ability to put your kid through college, 

on the viability of business on main street, and on levels of unemployment. 

I know that that connection seems remote, hard to appreciate. 

We cannot be certain we are getting that balance right. 

But again, look at what happened when reasonably careful people got that balance wrong. 

Senator WARNER. We all acknowledge, we are in the 100-year 

flood. We were taking extraordinary actions that causes all great 

concern. But it does seem—this is the one-off that seems like—the 

counterparties of AIG seem to be the one-off that still seems to be 

coming off whole when everyone else across the board has been 

taking some level of hit. 

Secretary GEITHNER. There is nothing fair in it and it is deeply 

frustrating, particularly for me personally because I have to sit up 

here and explain and defend this. 

But again, my obligation is to try to make sure we get that balance right. And if I felt there was a better way, I will come up here 

and explain it, and I will support it. 

Chairman DODD. Senator, thank you. We have to move on. 

Let me just say on this, and I want to just clarify, I have been 

under the impression we were going to try and craft something legislatively to deal with the resolution mechanism generally, not just 

for AIG but across the spectrum. 

And then there is a suggestion we might do something on a oneoff basis. First of all, do you think you need legislation? I mean, 

it seems to me, is there some lack of existing authority that would 

prohibit you to begin a resolution of AIG short of there being some 

legislative response, even in a one-off situation? 

I can understand if you are trying to come up with a mechanism 

broadly for the long-term with a lot of unanticipated entities. But 

with AIG specific, why can’t we do that? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Without broad authority like what we have 

for small banks, we have limited options. We are forced to do the 

range of things we have been doing at AIG since the fall. 

Chairman DODD. You need some authority? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Yes. And I know that you have offered—you 

have suggested we legislate for this specific thing and, Senator, you 

suggest I am hiding behind that, which I do not. I do not hide behind things, Senator. 

I think it is hard to do as a one-off thing. I think this is important to do. It is a necessary part of the authority this country needs 

going forward. I think to do it right you need to have it designed 

for a range of circumstances where you could face systemic risk of 

failure of a large complex institution. So I would not go one-off—— 
44 

Chairman DODD. Can I ask you something? Can you give me 

some broad ballpark number of what we are talking about in terms 

of the counterparties? What is the exposure dollar-wise? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Remaining exposure? 

Chairman DODD. Yes. 

Secretary GEITHNER. I cannot do it today but I will be happy to 

commit to this—I think the Fed has already done it—to provide estimates of current value of those outstanding obligations. And there 

is, of course, lots of different types of obligations AIG has outstanding. 

Chairman DODD. Let me tell you the number I have, Mr. Secretary, and you tell me if I am wrong. The national value of financial products contracts with counterparties is still $1.5 trillion. 

Secretary GEITHNER. That is the notional value and that is about 

half the level it was at the peak. But that is not the right way of 

thinking about risk or the exposure after collateral. That is a very 

different number. But I would be happy to talk to the Fed and see 

if we can give you that number. 

Chairman DODD. I wish you would, because we want to get some 

sense of the magnitude of what we are talking about here because 

that, at 100 cents on the dollar, obviously is a massive—— 

Secretary GEITHNER. No, that is nothing like the potential obligation that AIG has to its counterparties. It does show how complex 

it is to unwind this complicated amount of risk, but it is not a 

measure of actual credit exposure. 

Chairman DODD. Senator Johanns. 

Senator JOHANNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. It has been always very 

informative to listen to you. 

I want to zero in on something that I try to pay attention to, I 

think everybody here tries to pay attention to. That is that not only 

that the private sector operate within a set of rules, but that the 

Government and its officials operate within a set of rules. So I 

want to talk about the rights of people here with you a second. 

I will just be very blunt. I never personally thought I would live 

to see the date that a private CEO of a company would go to the 

White House and leave without their job. I just never thought I 

would see it. 

Soon after that you gave interviews, and even the President did, 

saying well, there could be others. You have talked very boldly 

today about changing board membership of private companies, reconstituting boards. You have a feeling, I can tell, that that is within the purview of your power as a cabinet member. 

I must admit, as a former cabinet member, I never imagined that 

I had the power to bring a company in that had been getting Government money for whatever and suggest to the CEO that they 

were without work. 

Tell me, if you would, Mr. Secretary, what specific—very specific—statute gives you that power? What would you cite me to that 

leads me to the conclusion that legally CEOs can be dismissed, 

boards can be reconstituted, all of those things? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I think to do that carefully I am 

going to have to respond in writing, but let me try and respond to 

the concerns you have raised about this. 
45 

We would never, as a Government, want to be in the position 

where it is necessary for us to broad public policy reasons to come 

in and provide substantial financial assistance to avoid the prospect of bankruptcy by a major institution. We do not want to be 

in that position. It should be—it has been extraordinarily rare. I 

hope it will be rare in the future. 

But when we face that situation, it is, I believe, necessary for the 

Government, for the people providing financing in that context, to 

make a judgment about whether the board and management are 

going to be able to preside over a restructuring which would leave 

the firm viable over time. I am now talking about non-regulated financial institutions. In the kinds of banks, there is a whole set of 

existing authorities that operate now that give supervisors very 

broad authority in circumstances like that. 

But I think this is an exceptionally sensitive careful balance and 

should rarely if ever be used. Do not expect there to be that situation in many cases going forward. I am talking about the banks as 

a different kind of framework. 

But again, like in any situation where a company is going to get 

financing for its operations, that is a judgment any creditor would 

have to make. And I think for the Government, the taxpayer, not 

to do that in that kind of context would leave us vulnerable to the 

charge that we are not meeting our fiduciary obligation to taxpayers. 

But we would use this ability exceedingly carefully, with extreme 

reluctance, extreme care, as you would expect. Because we do not 

want to have the country faced with the prospect of the Government coming in, making those judgments without a very strong 

reason for doing so. 

Senator JOHANNS. You know, Mr. Secretary, here is what I would 

say. I think you are a careful person. But again, having been where 

you are at, in a much different role but where you are at. And having been a CEO of a State, one of the first questions I was asked 

is what is my legal authority here. If I were to ask the GAO or 

your Inspector General or whoever to audit this action, would I find 

a specific statute that allowed you to do this? 

Secretary GEITHNER. Senator, I am completely confident that we 

acted fully within the authority of the executive branch in this 

case, and again would welcome a chance to lay that out for you. 

But let me try and do the basic principle. I said nothing to day 

that I have not said in public, or that the President has not said 

in public before. So do not interpret anything I said today as anything about the prospects of future actions like this. 

But again, I think the basic principle, just to restate it, is an understandable principle. If you look at what the Government of the 

United States did in the fall in the context of the interventions of 

Fannie and Freddie, or even in the AIG case, you saw in that context your Government act as a condition of assistance to make sure 

that the boards and management of those companies were going to 

be strong enough so that the taxpayers’ obligation will be protected 

going forward. 

So that framework, as you saw enacted by your Government in 

September, in those three specific cases, I do think it meets the 

reasonable test. Again, we have got obligations to the taxpayer, ob-
46 

ligations where we are making financial assistance. And we have 

an obligation in that context to make sure that we are putting in 

place assistance that is going to come back. 

Senator JOHANNS. I am going to suggest to you I do not believe 

it is a test of reasonableness. I think you are a reasonable guy. I 

think it is a test of specific statutory authority to take the action. 

The other thing I will offer on a related matter, and I am out 

of town and so I appreciate the Chairman’s indulgence. I did not 

do a lot of bankruptcy when I was practicing law. But I did enough 

to know that there is a well set of established rights and risk is 

priced based upon where you end up in that. 

And as I understand it, the bondholders in the Chrysler bankruptcy had certain rights. Those rights, whether we like it or not, 

were superior to the rights of the employees. How did they end up 

being subjected to a situation where they, in effect, lessened their 

rights in the bankruptcy court? What happened to make that 

occur? 

Secretary GEITHNER. That package of commitments went through 

a bankruptcy proceeding, was reviewed and approved by a bankruptcy judge as you would expect under the laws of the land—and 

that is the way our process works. That is the way it should work. 

So we had an independent check on whether the balance of treatment of a range of creditors to that firm was fair and equitable. 

Chairman DODD. I have got to get to Senator Merkley. I apologize to my colleague. I know we have a lot of questions. 

Senator Merkley. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman DODD. I am trying to get this done before we have to 

terminate. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you so much for your testimony. I am 

going to ask my questions quickly and ask for quick responses. 

First, in your testimony you note that financial innovation has 

expanded financial products available. These have many benefits. 

But we have to make sure that households make choices to borrow 

or to invest their savings, when they do so there are clear and fair 

rules to avoid manipulation, deception, and abuse. 

Are you essentially making the case for a financial products safety commission? 

Secretary GEITHNER. I believe that as part of regulatory reform 

we need to put in place stronger protections for consumers that are 

enforced more effectively and evenly across institutions that offer 

those products. And as part of that, we are examining whether we 

should change the oversight structure so that we have better enforcement of stronger rules. 

Senator MERKLEY. I certainly—that sounded like a yes, we are 

considering it. I certainly want to encourage that because while we 

are considering legislation to take on specific challenges and 

abuses, the design always is changing. And just as we have commissions to address consumer products in general, I think that 

would be quite useful. 

Turning to the Making Home Affordable Program, you note in 

your testimony that it covers now 75 percent of all loans. I think 

by that you are referring to, in theory, the design of the loans. Be-
47 

cause on the ground, homeowners are still having an extraordinarily difficult time reaching folks representing participants in 

the MHA program. Your testimony notes 55,000 trial modifications 

with 14 servicers. 

How do we speed up this process? And just say on the ground 

I have people calling my office very day who have loans with folks 

who are participating who are being told we are sorry, we cannot 

talk to you until you are two or 3 months delinquent. Or no, our 

organization is not participating in the program when we have told 

them yes, they are, and so forth. 

Secretary GEITHNER. It is just beginning. You cannot judge it by 

its effectiveness yet. Secretary Donovan has got a very substantial 

program of assistance to counselors to help make sure that people 

who are eligible are able to get assistance and to help them navigate the process. We are trying to create very strong incentives for 

services to participate and deliver and execute. It is just getting 

started. 

The benefits of the refinancing program, lower interest rates, 

people can see. And that has moved much more quickly. This will 

take a little bit more time. 

But I think it is going to benefit a lot of people, but really will 

not know the full scale of the benefits and how successful the modifications are until we have a few more weeks and months behind 

us in this. But we are working very hard, have a lot of resources 

devoted to it. Fannie and Freddie, which are implementing the program, are doing a lot. And I think you will start to see more traction. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you. I certainly want to encourage 

that. I will repeat what I said to the Secretary of Housing, that any 

form of a hotline that bypasses hundreds of servicers who have no 

idea of how this particular program works and helps us connect 

people with representatives of those participants who understand 

the program, who know how to talk about it, would save so much 

frustration. 

Because homeowners, after three or six or 10 calls, they give up. 

Secretary GEITHNER. There is such a hotline. There is also a Web 

site, which is very careful. In fact, I think last week Shaun Donovan and I together, to try to give more exposure to this program, 

used the example of a man from California—I think he was from 

California—who went on the Web site, found out about the program, and got a modification that substantially reduced his interest 

payment simply by going through that process. 

And he stood up there and said, on national television, these programs work. They will work for you. You need to just make sure 

you are eligible and you are working on it. 

But again, it is early days. We want to make sure it gets to as 

many people as we can. 

Chairman DODD. Thank you. 

Senator, we have got about 2 minutes left on our vote on the 

floor and they are going to call that vote. I get nervous about making it over. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much. 

Chairman DODD. I apologize to my colleague from Oregon. He 

has been very patient and waiting for the end here. 
48 

Mr. Secretary, we thank you very much. 

I am going to leave the record open. I know members may have 

some additional follow up questions we might get to you. But this 

has been very, very informative, very helpful today and we will follow up with you. But I thank you for being here. 

Secretary GEITHNER. Thank you for having me. 

Chairman DODD. The Committee will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

[Prepared statements, response to written questions, and additional material supplied for the record follow:] 
49 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED 

Chairman Dodd and Senator Shelby, thank you for convening this hearing. I look 

forward to hearing from Secretary Geithner about the status of the Troubled Assets 

Relief Program (TARP) and other efforts to help our economy recover from the significant turmoil we have been experiencing. 

Since the passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) last fall, 

I have been focused on making sure taxpayers are adequately protected. This has 

been extremely important to me given the unprecedented nature and magnitude of 

the investment we have asked them to make to help get our financial sector back 

on track. 

The TARP program is just one aspect of a significant investment being made to 

respond to the financial crisis, with the Federal Reserve and Treasury making key 

decisions involving billions of taxpayer dollars. Today’s hearing is a critical part of 

overseeing these investments, but we also need to continue to look closely at the 

Federal Reserve as we think about these issues. 

As we work to stabilize the financial sector, I want to reiterate how important 

it is that we make decisions in a way that supports taxpayers. 

As you are aware, Mr. Secretary, I included specific language in TARP to allow 

Treasury to hold warrants as a way to ensure that taxpayers would not just be exposed to the downside of these TARP investments, but would also benefit from the 

upside of these companies when they recover. As you are aware, a provision I wrote 

to protect the integrity of the warrants passed both the Senate and House yesterday 

and should give Treasury the discretion and leverage it needs to maximize this investment for taxpayers. 

Finally, I am alarmed by recent news that, despite the Federal Reserve’s prohibition of private equity firms acquiring struggling banks, the Office of Thrift Supervision has recently gone ahead and approved such a transaction. This is yet one 

more example of how our current regulatory system allows financial institutions to 

shop bad products or activities around until they find a regulator to say yes. So I 

hope to discuss this more with you during questioning. 

Secretary Geithner, thank you for joining us today. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY GEITHNER 

SECRETARY, 

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, 

MAY 20, 2009 

Chairman Dodd, Ranking Member Shelby, Members of the Senate Banking Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. 

On October 3, 2008, during a time of tremendous financial upheaval and economic 

uncertainty, Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) 

with the specific goal of stabilizing the Nation’s financial system and preventing catastrophic collapse. Soon after taking office, this Administration rebuilt the EESA 

programs from the ground up with a new foundation. We also unveiled a financial 

stability plan to restore the flow of credit to consumers and businesses, tackle the 

foreclosure crisis in order to help millions of Americans stay in their homes, and 

comprehensively reform the Nation’s financial regulatory system so that a crisis like 

this one never happens again. 

Today, just 4 months into President Obama’s term of office, there are important 

indications that our financial system is starting to heal. For example, spreads for 

investment grade corporate bonds have fallen about 210 basis points and spreads 

on high yield corporate bonds are down about 770 basis points since the end of November. Spreads on AAA municipal bonds have come down 150 basis points since 

October. Risk premiums in short-term, inter-bank markets have fallen 280 basis 

points over roughly the same period and the cost of credit protection for the largest 

U.S. banks has fallen by about 180 basis points just since early April. Treasury is 

continuing to look into additional metrics that gauge the markets more broadly, as 

well as additional economic metrics, to determine the effectiveness of the current 

strategy and whether additional or different steps are needed. 

With the help of our lending facility with the Federal Reserve, new securities 

issuance has started to revive. Spreads for AAA credit card receivables asset-backed 

securities (ABS) have fallen about 330 basis points from their peak. There has been 

more issuance of consumer ABS in the past 2 months than in the preceding 5 
50 

1The estimated change in payroll employment in November was later revised to a decline of 

597,000. 

months combined. In our housing market, interest rates on 30-year mortgages have 

dropped to historic lows and refinancing has surged. 

Finally, we have already seen a substantial amount of adjustment in our financial 

system. Leverage has declined, the most vulnerable parts of the nonbank financial 

system no longer pose the same risk, and banks are funding themselves more conservatively. 

These are all welcome signs. However, the process of financial recovery and repair 

will take time. 

The Conditions We Confronted Upon Taking Office 

The challenges that our financial system confronts are complex, interrelated, and 

the result of developments over many years. Earlier this decade, a combination of 

factors generated unsustainable bubbles in many housing markets across the country. A protracted period of rapid innovation, excessive risk taking, and inadequate 

regulation produced a financial system that was far more fragile than was generally 

appreciated during the boom times. 

Starting in 2007, unexpected losses experienced by major banks on mortgagebacked securities set off a vicious cycle. The losses reduced their capital, which 

forced them to pull back on lending. This put downward pressure on asset prices, 

which generated further losses for the banks and reduced wealth for millions of 

American families and businesses. Tightening financial conditions became a drag on 

the broader economy. As workers lost jobs and as prospects for businesses darkened, 

prospective losses on consumer and business loans increased. And as the scale of 

the potential financial losses increased, market concerns about the viability of individual institutions mounted, and as firms became reluctant to maintain even normal 

exposures to one another, the basic functioning of our financial markets was compromised. 

In the fall of 2008, major policy intervention (including the EESA legislation) was, 

in the end, successful in achieving the vital but narrow objective of preventing a 

systemic financial meltdown. However, while those actions reduced overt concerns 

about systemic risk, as President-Elect Obama and his economic team prepared an 

economic program, the outlook for the economy was deteriorating rapidly. Economic 

data that became available in November and December pointed to a very sharp fall 

in economic activity. For example, the advanced data on orders for durable goods 

fell by 6.2 percent in October, the largest monthly decrease in 2 years. On December 

4, it was reported that payroll employment had fallen by 533,000 in November. 1

This was the largest monthly decline since the deep recession of 1973–74. Quickly 

worsening prospects for the economy meant that likely losses for U.S. financial institutions were rising sharply as well, and this heightened concerns about the adequacy of their capital. 

The disruptions to the financial system were a major factor undermining the economy. Liquidity in a broader range of securities markets, including the market for 

long-term Treasuries, fell sharply. Credit spreads for virtually all credit products 

reached historic highs in the fourth quarter. Loan growth and bond issuance slowed 

in the fourth quarter. In particular, the issuance of new ABS essentially came to 

a halt in October. Part of the decline in credit growth reflected falling demand for 

credit as consumers and businesses became more cautious. But a variety of factors 

pointed to meaningful constraints on the supply of credit. For example, a record 

number of banks reported tightening credit standards in the fourth quarter. 

In addition, given the substantial burden placed upon the American taxpayers, 

there was deep public anger, skepticism about whether the government was using 

taxpayer money wisely, and a perceived lack of transparency, all of which led to 

eroding confidence. 

Our Response 

Leaving that situation unaddressed would have undoubtedly risked a deeper recession and more damage to the productive capacity of the American economy. It 

would have resulted in higher unemployment and greater failures of businesses. 

The lesson of past economic crises is that early, forceful and sustained action is 

necessary to spur growth, repair the financial system and restore the flow of credit 

in order to sustain economic recovery. 

Facing these extraordinary challenges, this Administration and the Congress responded with extraordinary action. Within weeks, we enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that is giving 95 percent of working Americans 

a tax cut, creating or saving 3.5 million jobs, providing nearly 4 million students 
51 

with a new higher education tax cut and helping 1.4 million Americans purchase 

their first home by providing $6.5 billion in tax credits. 

On February 10, the Administration outlined a series of proposals to stabilize the 

housing market; boost new consumer and business lending by re-starting the market for securities; increase transparency and new capital in the financial system by 

conducting an unprecedented regulatory review of our Nation’s largest banks; and 

create a market for legacy real-estate related loans and securities that are clogging 

banks and making them reluctant to lend. 

Reforming EESA 

Upon taking office, this Administration reformed EESA in four concrete ways. 

First, we brought a new framework of transparency, accountability, and oversight. 

Second, we redirected the program to get credit flowing again to the financial system. Third, we focused the program on the housing market, consumer business lending, small business lending, and efforts to help create a market for legacy loans and 

securities. Finally, we worked to ensure that our programs facilitated broader restructuring in the financial system by providing unprecedented transparency about 

the health of our major financial institutions, allowing investors to differentiate 

more clearly among banks and ultimately make it easier for banks to raise enough 

private capital to repay the money they have already received from the government. 

I would like to update the Committee on each. 

Transparency, Accountability, and Oversight 

A key element to our new approach came in March, when the Department of the 

Treasury launched a new Web site, www.financialstability.gov, that lists how taxpayer dollars are spent, what conditions are placed on institutions in exchange for 

government assistance, and provides an interactive map illustrating State-by-State 

bank and financial institution funding. 

We have also taken a number of steps to better measure whether our programs 

are increasing the flow of credit through Monthly Lending and Intermediation Surveys. Treasury undertook this important initiative to better understand the effects 

the program is having and to help the public easily assess the lending and intermediation activities of banks participating in the Capital Purchase Program (CPP). 

The Surveys capture data from the 20 largest recipients of investments under the 

CPP, detailing quantitative information on three major categories of lending—consumer, commercial, and other financial activities—based on banks’ internal reporting, as well as commentary to explain changes in lending levels for each category. 

We are in the process of expanding our monthly survey to include all banks participating in the CPP, including more than 500 small and community banks across the 

country and are adding a metric to follow lending to small businesses. For institutions taking part in the Capital Assistance Program (CAP), which I will describe 

momentarily, Treasury is requiring recipients to detail in monthly reports their 

lending broken out by category. 

In addition, on January 28, 2009, Treasury announced that it would begin posting 

all of its investment contracts online within 5 to 10 business days of each transaction’s closing. Treasury is in the process of posting all the contracts signed prior 

to January 28 to the Web site as well. To date, Treasury has posted over 240 investment contracts on www.financialstability.gov, in addition to terms and program 

guidelines for all programs under the EESA. 

Since taking office we have worked closely with the General Accounting Office, 

the Congressional Oversight Panel, and the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the three oversight bodies examining the implementation 

of EESA. We are continually reviewing their recommendations and are adapting our 

programs in response to their proposals. 

Finally, on February 4, the President laid out a set of broad reforms for compensation packages for financial institutions that receive government assistance. 

Congress put in place additional reforms and currently Treasury is preparing an Interim Final Rule to implement the executive compensation and corporate governance provisions of the ARRA. 

Housing 

As we are all painfully aware, the collapse of the housing price bubble, and the 

sharp reversal in lending standards that helped fuel that bubble, have had a devastating effect on homeowners and the financial sector, with dire consequences for 

the economy overall. In addition to reducing household wealth across the country, 

and thereby further intensifying the economic contraction, falling home prices and 

extraordinarily tight lending standards have trapped homeowners in their old mortgages. Even many homeowners who made what seemed to be conservative financial 

decisions 3, 4, or 5 years ago find themselves unable to benefit from the low interest 
52 

rates available to unencumbered borrowers today. At the same time, increases in 

unemployment and other recessionary pressures have continued to impair the ability of some otherwise responsible families to stay current on mortgage payments. 

Since January, the Administration has spent considerable effort developing and 

implementing a comprehensive plan for stabilizing our housing market. Working 

with the Federal Reserve, along with enacting programs to help provide more financial strength to the GSEs, we helped bring overall mortgage interest rates down to 

historic lows. 

We launched a new program called Making Home Affordable to make it possible 

for millions of American homeowners to refinance and take advantage of those lower 

interest rates. 

And we put in place a program to reduce the monthly mortgage payments for eligible borrowers. This loan modification program ensures monthly mortgage payments are at most 31 percent of a person’s income for 5 years. 

On April 6, building on MHA, Treasury announced a major interagency effort to 

combat mortgage rescue fraud and put scammers on notice that we will not stand 

by while they prey on homeowners seeking help to avoid foreclosure. 

On April 28, Treasury announced a Second Lien Program so that, when a Home 

Affordable Modification is initiated on a first lien, servicers participating in the Second Lien Program will automatically reduce payments on the associated second lien 

according to a preset protocol. Servicers alternatively have the option to extinguish 

the second lien in return for a lump sum payment under a preset formula determined by Treasury, allowing servicers to target principal extinguishment to the borrowers where extinguishment is most appropriate. Treasury also announced steps 

to incorporate the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Hope for Homeowners 

into MHA. 

And on May 14, Treasury announced new details on Foreclosure Alternatives and 

Home Price Decline Payments. The Foreclosure Alternatives are meant to prevent 

costly foreclosures by providing incentives for servicers and borrowers to pursue 

short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure in cases where a borrower is eligible for 

a MHA modification but unable to complete the modification process. The Home 

Price Decline Protection Incentives will provide additional payments based on recent 

home price declines, and therefore will incentivize additional modifications in areas 

where home prices have been falling. 

To date, MHA’s progress has been substantial. Fourteen servicers, including the 

five largest, have signed contracts and begun modifications under our program. Between loans covered by these servicers and loans owned or securitized by Fannie 

Mae or Freddie Mac, more than 75 percent of all loans in the country are now covered by MHA. The 14 participating servicers have extended offers on over 55,000 

trial modifications and mailed out over 300,000 letters with information about trial 

modifications to borrowers and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have acquired thousands of refinancings for high loan-to-value (LTV) borrowers. 

Since the launch of its new automated underwriting system on April 4, Fannie 

Mae has had over 233,000 eligible refinance applications through DU Refi Plus, 

with over 51,000 of these having LTVs between 80 and 105 percent. More than 

3,650 Home Affordable Refinance loans have closed and been delivered to Fannie 

Mae and Freddie Mac already. These application volumes indicate the desire of 

homeowners to take advantage of the Administration’s program. 

Since the Treasury released guidelines for servicers under MHA on March 4, close 

to 3 million borrowers have accessed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan look-up 

tools online to see if they have a loan eligible for refinancing. Just 2 weeks after 

the guidelines were released Treasury also launched 

www.makinghomeaffordable.gov, a Web site dedicated to helping empowering homeowners with the tools to gather information about the program and determine 

whether they might be eligible. The site has received more than 17.7 million page 

views in less than 2 months. 

Going forward, we will continue to explore additional ways to help the housing 

market and report on ongoing progress. 

Capital Assistance Program 

Currently, the vast majority of banks have more capital than they need to be considered well capitalized by their regulators. However, concerns about economic conditions—combined with the destabilizing impact of distressed ‘‘legacy assets’’—have 

created an environment under which uncertainty about the health of individual 

banks has sharply reduced lending across the financial system, working against economic recovery. 

For every dollar that banks are short of the capital they need, they will be forced 

to shrink their lending by eight to twelve dollars. Conversely, every additional dollar 
53 

of capital gives banks the capacity to expand lending by eight to twelve dollars. Providing confidence that banks have a sufficient level of capital even if the economic 

outlook deteriorates is a necessary step to restart lending, so that families have access to the credit they need to buy homes or pay for college, and businesses can get 

the loans they need to expand. Moreover, reassuring investors that banks have sufficient resources to weather even a very adverse economic scenario will make it possible for banks to raise additional private capital. 

That is why a key component of any credible program to restore confidence to the 

financial system and get credit flowing again is to recapitalize the banking system, 

ensuring that the largest banks in the country have sufficient capital so they can 

support lending, even in a more severe economic scenario. 

On May 7, Federal banking supervisors announced the results of the most extensive regulator review in our Nation’s history of the biggest 19 banks. The forwardlooking test provided unprecedented levels of transparency and clarity to address 

uncertainty in the banking system. 

The results found that 9 of the 19 firms currently have capital buffers sufficient 

to get through the adverse scenario and that the remaining 10 firms collectively 

need to add $75 billion to their capital buffers to reach the target. 

Any Bank Holding Company needing to augment its capital buffer is required to 

develop a detailed capital plan to be approved by its primary supervisor, after consultation with the FDIC and Treasury. These plans are due 30 days following the 

release of the results, on June 8, and must be implemented within 6 months of the 

release of the results. Also, some firms may choose to apply to Treasury for Mandatory Convertible Preferred (MCP) under our program as a bridge to private capital. 

This review is helping to increase confidence in the financial system. To date, 

more than $56 billion in funds have been raised or announced by the 19 banks, including $34 billion in common equity capital. Of the $56 billion, about $48 billion 

has been planned or executed by banks with a SCAP shortfall. Banks without a 

shortfall have signaled their intent to use funds to repay EESA capital if approved. 

One of the preconditions to repaying EESA capital is that banks must demonstrate 

financial strength by issuing senior unsecured debt for a term greater than 5 years 

not backed by FDIC guarantees. To date, banks have also raised $8 billion in nonFDIC guaranteed bonds. 

Going forward, we plan to re-open the application window for banks with total 

assets under $500 million under the Capital Purchase Program, established last October by the previous Administration, and raise from 3 percent of risk-weighted assets to 5 percent the amount for which qualifying institutions can apply. This applies to all term sheets—public and private corporations, Subchapter S corporations, 

and mutual institutions. Current CPP participants will be allowed to reapply, and 

will have an expedited approval process. 

In addition, we plan to extend the deadline for small banks to form a holding company for the purposes of CPP. Both the window to form a holding company and the 

window to apply or re-apply for CPP will be open for 6 months. 

These are essential steps to ensuring that community banks, a source of strength 

and resilience for the U.S. financial system, continue to lend during this economic 

crisis. Community banks have accounted for more than one third of the dollar volume of loans to small businesses—the businesses which in turn have accounted for 

the majority of new jobs created annually over the past decade. 

Consumer and Business Lending Initiative 

Securitization has come to play a very important role in the U.S. financial system. 

Banks develop and maintain expertise in originating certain types of loans. This includes loans to individuals through credit cards, mortgages, student loans, and other 

forms of consumer credit as well as loans to businesses, particularly those that are 

not able to raise funds directly in securities markets. In recent years, an increasing 

portion of these loans have been aggregated into pools and sold as so-called Asset 

Backed Securities, or ABS. The rapid growth of the market for ABS in the years 

before the current crisis increased the supply of credit available to individuals and 

small businesses because once banks pool and sell loans to the securitization market, it opens up their balance sheet to create new loans. 

As the economy deteriorated over the summer of 2008, credit spreads on ABS 

began to rise, and the disruptions that followed the failure of Lehman Brothers severely disrupted the market of newly issued ABS. Issuance of consumer ABS averaged $20 billion per month in 2007, and $18 billion per month during the first half 

of 2008. However, ABS issuance slowed sharply in the third quarter before coming 

to a virtual halt in October 2008. The closure of this market is a major constraint 

on the supply of new credit to individuals and businesses, particularly in an environment where banks have little scope to expand their balance sheets. 
54 

An important part of the FSP is a significant expansion of the Term Asset-Backed 

Securities Loan Facility (TALF) through the Consumer and Business Lending Initiative (CBLI). The TALF is designed to jumpstart the securitization markets, which 

in turn will increase lending throughout the economy. Under the TALF, the Federal 

Reserve extends loans to investors who purchased newly issued ABS. Treasury has 

committed funds under the EESA program to provide a degree of credit protection 

for the Federal Reserve’s TALF loans. The program was initially proposed in November 2008, with a focus on highly rated ABS backed by student loans, auto loans, 

credit card loans, and loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration 

(SBA). As part of our financial stability plan, we announced an expansion of the size 

and scope of the program, increasing the scale of potential ABS funding under 

TALF. 

Recently, Treasury and the Federal Reserve expanded TALF to include newly or 

recently issued AAA-rated ABS backed by four additional types of consumer and 

business loans—mortgage servicing advances, loans or leases relating to business 

equipment, leases of vehicle fleets, and floor plan loans. Treasury and the Federal 

Reserve have expanded the 3-year TALF loans to include a 5-year term and just 

yesterday we announced extending certain legacy commercial mortgage backed securities as an eligible collateral for TALF loans. Addressing the dislocation in the commercial real estate market through this program is critical to restoring the flow of 

credit to owners of commercial real estate and preventing a damaging chain of 

events in this market. 

The terms of the funding provided under TALF, including fees, are set in a way 

that is designed to limit the risks faced by U.S. taxpayers while still meeting the 

objective of encouraging lending to consumers and small businesses. The amount 

and cost of funding that is provided varies depending on the riskiness of the assets 

being financed. Treasury and the Federal Reserve used conservative assumptions 

when calibrating the limits on the funding provided given the uncertain economic 

environment. 

To date there has been $24.8 billion in total new issuance under TALF, of which 

$17.2 billion was borrowed by investors using TALF loans. The 3 month average of 

TALF issuance was equivalent to 50 percent of the 2007 market volume. Spreads 

on ABS securities have narrowed between 40–60 percent from the peak in December 

2008. Since the fourth quarter of 2008, 5-year fixed rate AAA credit cards tightened 

300 basis points in four months. Finally, the commercial mortgage-backed securities 

spreads have narrowed by 800 basis points just from the presence of the TALF program. 

Going forward, Treasury and the Federal Reserve will continue to monitor and enhance the ABS programs to bring in new, more niche asset classes and make sure 

that the number of eligible borrowers and issuers continues to increase. 

Small Business Initiative 

In recent years, securitization has supported over 40 percent of lending guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). As a result of the severe dislocations in the credit markets that began in October 2008, however, both lenders that 

originate loans under SBA programs and the ‘‘pool assemblers’’ that package such 

loans for securitization have experienced significant difficulty in selling those loans 

or securities in the secondary market. This, in turn, has significantly reduced the 

ability of lenders and pool assemblers to make new small business loans. While the 

SBA guarantees about $18 billion in new lending in 2008, new lending was trending 

below $10 billion earlier this year. 

On March 16, 2009, Treasury announced a program to unlock credit for small 

businesses as part of the Consumer and Business Lending Initiative. As part of the 

program, Treasury will make up to $15 billion in EESA funds available to make direct purchases to unlock the secondary market for the government-guaranteed portion of SBA 7(a) loans as well as first-lien mortgages made through the 504 program. These purchases, combined with temporary benefits, including higher loan 

guarantees and reduced fees implemented under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will help provide support to small business lending. 

The announcement impact of this initiative—combined with the implementation 

of 90 percent guarantees and reduced fees—has helped raise weekly SBA loan volumes by over 25 percent since March 16. In addition, secondary market activity has 

picked up, with $185 million in total loan volume settled from lenders to brokers 

in April, the highest monthly total since September. 

Going forward, Treasury expects to finalize details that will allow purchases to 

begin shortly. 
55 

2See ‘‘White Paper: Public Private Investment Program,’’ U.S. Treasury, March 23, 2009, 

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/ppiplwhitepaperl032309.pdf. 

Public Private Investment Program 

A variety of troubled legacy assets are congesting the U.S. financial system. The 

vicious cycle of deleveraging has pushed some asset prices to extremely low levels, 

levels that are indicative of distressed sellers. The difficulty of obtaining private financing on reasonable terms to purchase these assets has reduced secondary market liquidity and disrupted normal price discovery. This constraint on capital reduces the ability of financial institutions to provide new credit and uncertainty 

about the value of legacy assets is constraining the ability of financial intuitions to 

raise private capital. 

The Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) 2 is intended to restart the market 

for these assets while also restoring bank balance sheets as these devalued loans 

and securities are sold. Using $75 to $100 billion in capital from EESA and capital 

from private investors—as well as funding enabled by the Federal Reserve and 

FDIC—PPIP will generate $500 billion in purchasing power to buy legacy assets, 

with the potential to expand to $1 trillion over time. By providing a market for 

these assets, PPIP will help improve asset values, increase lending capacity for 

banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets— 

making it easier for banks to raise private capital and replace the capital investments made by Treasury. 

By following three basic principles, PPIP is designed as part of an overall strategy 

to resolve the crisis as quickly as possible with the least cost to the taxpayer. First, 

by partnering with the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and private sector investors, we 

will make the most of taxpayer resources under EESA. Second, PPIP will ensure 

that private sector participants invest alongside the government, with the private 

sector investors standing to lose money in a downside scenario and the taxpayer 

sharing in profitable returns. Third, the program will use competing private sector 

investors to engage in price discovery, reducing the likelihood that the government 

will overpay for these assets. By contrast, if the government alone purchased these 

legacy assets from banks, it would assume the entire share of the losses and risk 

overpaying. Alternatively, if we simply hoped that banks would work off these assets over time, we would be prolonging the economic crisis, which in turn would cost 

more to the taxpayer over time. PPIP strikes the right balance, making the most 

of taxpayer dollars, sharing risk with the private sector, and taking advantage of 

private sector competition to set market prices for currently illiquid assets. 

The program has two major components, one each for securities and loans. The 

Legacy Securities Program initially will target commercial mortgage-backed securities and residential mortgage-backed securities. Treasury will partner with approved asset managers. Pre-approved asset managers will have an opportunity to 

raise private capital for a public–private investment fund (‘‘PPIF’’). Treasury will invest equity capital from the EESA in the PPIF on a dollar-for-dollar basis with participating private investors. Additional funding will be available either directly from 

Treasury or through TALF. The program is designed to encourage participation by 

a wide range of investors, and we extended the application deadline to facilitate that 

objective. 

The Legacy Loans Program is designed to attract private capital to purchase eligible legacy loans and other assets from participating banks through the availability 

of FDIC debt guarantees and Treasury equity co-investments. Under the program, 

PPIFs will be formed—with up to 50 percent equity participation by Treasury—to 

purchase and manage pools of legacy loans and other assets purchased from U.S. 

banks and savings associations. The FDIC will provide a guarantee of debts issued 

by PPIFs and collect a guarantee fee. The FDIC will be responsible for overseeing 

the formation, funding, and operation of legacy loan PPIFs and for overseeing and 

managing the debt guarantees it provides to the PPIFs. 

The terms of the funding provided under both parts of PPIP, including fees, will 

be set in a way that is designed to limit the risks faced by U.S. taxpayers while 

still meeting the objective of generating new demand for legacy assets. In addition, 

those participating in the program will be subject to a significant degree of oversight 

to ensure that their actions are consistent with the objectives of the program. 

To date, Treasury has received more than 100 unique fund manager applications 

representing various types and sizes of institutions, geographical diversity and including a significant number of women, minorities and veterans. Treasury is evaluating a select group of finalists and will inform applicants of their preliminary qualifications in the next several weeks. 
56 

Working with the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, we expect these programs to 

begin operating over the next 6 weeks. 

Auto Task Force 

On February 20, 2009, National Economic Council Director Larry Summers and 

I convened the official designees to the Presidential Task Force on Autos to analyze 

the February 17 restructuring plan submissions of Chrysler and General Motors and 

work toward a determination on the ability of the plans to yield long-term financial 

viability and competitiveness for these companies without taxpayer support. On 

March 30, the President laid out a new finite path forward for both companies to 

restructure and succeed; Chrysler would have until April 30 to reach a definitive 

deal with Fiat and secure the necessary support of stakeholders, and General Motors would have until June 1 to engage in more fundamental restructuring and develop a credible strategy for implementation. 

In addition to supporting these companies with working capital during this restructuring period, the Administration took steps to ensure that consumers had confidence in the cars they buy and that suppliers that depend on viable auto companies had support to weather the storm. To this end, the President announced a warranty commitment program, which would guarantee the warranty of all new cars 

purchased from GM or Chrysler during the restructuring period, and a $5 billion 

Supplier Support Program to provide suppliers with the confidence they need to continue shipping their parts and the support they need to help access loans to pay 

their employees and continue their operations. In addition, the launch of the Term 

Asset-Backed Securities Loan facility (TALF) has expanded the funding available for 

retail auto loans. 

On April 30, President Obama announced an agreement among Chrysler, Fiat, 

and their key stakeholders that positions Chrysler for a viable future. As a result 

of the sacrifices by key stakeholders and a substantial commitment of U.S. government resources, Chrysler now has a new opportunity to thrive as a long-term viable 

21st century company. We have been heartened by the steady progress that Chrysler has made through its bankruptcy proceeding and are confident that the new 

Chrysler–Fiat partnership will emerge from the court process shortly. A sale hearing on the transaction is scheduled for May 27—less than a month after the company filed for Chapter 11. 

As the President has made clear, this restructuring process will require sacrifice 

by all stakeholders in the auto industry, including auto workers, debt and equity 

investors, dealers, suppliers, and the communities in which they operate. Yet, the 

Administration’s commitment to the American automotive industry has given both 

GM and Chrysler a new lease on life, preventing plant and dealership closings on 

a massive scale and saving tens of thousands of jobs across the country. By helping 

these companies become more competitive, this process will result in more secure 

employment for tens of thousands of American workers and the best possible chance 

for the American auto industry to create more good jobs in the future. 

Through the Task Force, we will continue to work with GM and its stakeholders 

in the lead up to the June 1 deadline. We will also continue our significant efforts 

to ensure that financing is available to creditworthy dealers and to pursue efforts 

to help boost domestic demand for cars. 

EESA Funds 

Some of the programs I have mentioned have required the Administration to use 

additional EESA funds and I would like to provide the latest estimate we have on 

how much remains. By the time President Obama was sworn in, over half of the 

$700 billion allocated to Treasury under the EESA had already been committed. 

The new programs where we committed additional resources are our housing programs, consumer business lending, small business lending, the auto program and 

our program to create a market for legacy loans and securities. We’ve also had to 

make additional resources available to help stabilize AIG. An attached chart shows 

our latest accounting. 

Today, Treasury estimates that there is at least $123.7 billion in resources authorized under EESA still available. The attached table provides a breakdown of our 

expenditures. This figure assumes that the projected amount committed to existing 

programs will be $601.3 billion (of which $355.4 billion was committed under the 

previous administration), but also anticipates that $25 billion will be paid back 

under the CPP over the next year and available for new assistance. 

Because the most relevant consideration is what funds will remain available for 

new programs, we believe that our estimates are conservative for two reasons. First, 

our estimates assume 100 percent take-up of the $220 billion made available for our 

housing and liquidity programs, which require significant voluntary participation 
57 

from financial participants. If any of those programs experience less than full takeup, additional funds will be available. Secondly, our projections anticipate only $25 

billion will be paid back under CPP over the next year, a figure lower than many 

private analysts expect. 

Regulatory Reform 

As we work to stabilize the financial system, we need to make sure we are also 

putting in place comprehensive reforms to ensure a crisis like this never happens 

again. 

The rapid growth of the largest financial institutions and their increasing interconnections through securities markets have heightened systemic risk in the system. In response, we need to expand our capacity to contain systemic risk. This crisis—and the cases of firms like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and AIG—has 

made clear that certain large, interconnected firms and markets need to be under 

a more consistent and more conservative regulatory regime. It is not enough to address the potential insolvency of individual institutions—we must also ensure the 

stability of the system itself. 

Financial innovation has expanded the financial products and services that are 

available to consumers. These changes have brought many benefits. But we have 

to make sure that when households make choices to borrow, or to invest their savings, there are clear and fair rules of the road that prevent manipulation, deception, 

and abuse. Lax regulation has left too many households exposed to those risks. We 

need meaningful disclosures that actual consumers and investors can understand. 

We need to promote simplicity, so that financial choices offered to consumers are 

clear, reasonable, and appropriate. Furthermore, there must be clear accountability 

for protecting consumers and investors alike. 

The rapid pace of development in the financial sector in recent decades has meant 

that gaps and inconsistencies in our regulatory system have become more meaningful and problematic. Financial activity has tended to gravitate towards the parts of 

the system that are regulated least effectively. Looking ahead, our regulatory structure must assign clear authority, resources, and accountability for each of its key 

functions. 

The financial landscape has become ever more global in recent years. Advances 

in information technology have made it easier to invest abroad, which has expanded 

and accelerated cross-border capital flows. Greater global macroeconomic stability 

has also helped to accelerate financial development around the world. To keep pace 

with these trends, we must ensure that international rules for financial regulation 

are consistent with the high standards we will be implementing in the United 

States. Additionally, we must seek to materially improve prudential supervision, tax 

compliance, and restrictions on money laundering in weakly regulated jurisdictions. 

Finally, the recent financial crisis has shown that the largest financial institutions can pose special risks to the financial system as a whole. In addition to regulating these institutions differently, we must give the Federal government new tools 

for dealing with situations where the solvency of these institutions is called into 

question. Treasury has proposed legislation for a resolution authority that would 

grant additional tools to avoid the disorderly liquidation of systemically significant 

financial institutions that fall outside of the existing resolution regime for banks 

under the FDIC. 

Conclusion 

Let me conclude by saying that our central obligation is to ensure that the economy is able to recover as quickly as possible, and a prerequisite for that is a stable 

financial system that it is able to provide the credit necessary for economic recovery. 

Our work is not yet completed. 

But, even then, stability is not enough. We need a financial system that is not 

deepening or lengthening the recession, and once the conditions for recovery are in 

place, we need a financial system that is able to provide credit on the scale that 

a growing economy requires. 

Meeting this obligation requires early and aggressive action by the government 

to repair the financial system and promote the flow of credit. It requires governments to take risks. It also requires the financial system to support sustainable economic expansion. And it requires comprehensive regulatory reforms that deter fraud 

and abuse, protect American families when they buy a home or get a credit card, 

reward innovation and tie pay to job performance, and end past cycles of boom and 

bust. 

This is our commitment. Thank you. 
58 
59 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF CHAIRMAN DODD 

FROM TIMOTHY GEITHNER 

Q.1. Mr. Secretary, the TARP fund, at its core, was implemented 

to help remove bad assets from creditors’ books so that we might 

unfreeze the credit markets and get our economy moving again. 

Yet it has come to my attention that some of the largest recipients 

of TARP monies are engaged in efforts to seek modifications to 

their ‘‘creditor’’ status in certain bankruptcy restructurings. Such 

modifications would benefit the banks’ bottom lines, but could also 

threaten the viability of the restructurings themselves. Do you believe that TARP recipients should be engaging in activities that 

would make it more difficult for American companies to successfully restructure? 

A.1. United States bankruptcy judges are guided by law to ensure 

that EESA recipients, like all creditors, behave in a manner consistent with the bankruptcy code, and these judges are responsible 

for preventing creditors from improperly delaying a debtor’s emergence from bankruptcy. To the extent that objections raised by 

these recipients are unreasonable or unreasonably time consuming, 

it is incumbent upon the bankruptcy judge in each of these cases 

to both recognize and dismiss spurious objections. 

Q.2. SIGTARP Reports—The Special Inspector General of the 

TARP, the GAO, and the Congressional Oversight Panel regularly 

issue reports that identify areas of concern and provide recommendations for the TARP. We carefully analyze these reports 

and the recommendations. What has been the Treasury’s practice 

and what is the policy with regard to analyzing and acting on the 

concerns and recommendations raised in these reports? 

The SIGTARP noted on page 137 of the April 21, 2009, Quarterly 

Report to Congress that the Treasury indicated it will not adopt 

several of the earlier recommendations. These recommendations 

are to require TARP recipients to account for the use of TARP 

funds, set up internal controls to comply with such accounting, and 

report periodically to Treasury on the results, with appropriate 

sworn certifications. Why did Treasury dispute the SIGTARP’s recommendations? What measures is Treasury implementing to improve accountability and address the concerns raised by SIGTARP? 

A.2. Treasury gave careful consideration to all recommendations 

issued by SIGTARP. Treasury’s policies and programs currently address many of the issues raised by SIGTARP’s recommendations, 

and in other cases Treasury has taken specific action to implement 

SIGTARP’s recommendations. Treasury also has or will execute alternative approaches that we believe address some of the issues 

raised by SIGTARP in their recommendations. The steps that 

Treasury has taken and the progress Treasury has made in this regard are detailed in our July 2, 2009, correspondence in response 

to the SIGTARP recommendations, which appear on pages 240–256 

in Appendix G of the SIGTARP Quarterly Report dated July 21, 

2009. 

As described in Treasury’s response to SIGTARP’s recommendations, Treasury always seeks to ensure accountability for TARP 

funds and includes measures in each of its programs to ensure 

such accountability. In discussing use of TARP funds, it is impor-
60 

tant to distinguish between Treasury’s capital-enhancement programs and its other programs. The Capital Purchase Program 

(CPP), Capital Assistance Program (CAP), and the programs under 

which exceptional assistance has been provided to AIG, Citigroup, 

and Bank of America are designed to provide capital to cushion 

against losses and allow financial institutions to continue operating 

in the ordinary course of business, including lending to consumers 

and businesses. In order to serve its purpose, capital must be available for general business purposes. By contrast, Treasury’s Home 

Affordable Modification Programs (HAMP), Small Business Lending Initiative (SBLI), Public–Private Investment Program (PPIP), 

and Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) program 

impose specific restrictions on the use of TARP funds, and require 

controls and periodic reports to ensure that those restrictions are 

respected. 

Q.3. AIG Counterparties—In response to several questions asked at 

the hearing, you stated that the government is unable to impose 

losses on the creditors and counterparties of AIG. The Treasury 

has proposed legislative language to create new resolution authority for systemically significant financial companies. Would the resolution authority you have proposed, allow the government to impose haircuts on or otherwise negotiate changes in terms with 

creditors and counterparties of AIG or of other large, complex financial companies that became similarly troubled? If it would not, 

then what changes in statute are needed to do so? 

A.3. The resolution authority legislation that we have proposed 

would give the government the tools to establish a conservator or 

receivership for a failing financial firm in situations that threaten 

financial stability. As part of these tools, the conservator or receiver would have the authority to sell or transfer the assets or liabilities of the institution in question, to renegotiate or repudiate 

the institution’s contracts, and to address the derivatives portfolio, 

thereby reducing the potential for further disruption. 

In the case of AIG, the government has provided financial assistance in order to avert the risks to the global financial system posed 

by the rapid and disorderly failure of such a large, complex entity 

in a fragile market environment. Had the government possessed 

the authorities contained in the proposed legislation, it could have 

resolved AIG in an orderly manner by sharing losses among equity 

and debt holders in a way that maintained confidence in the institution’s ability to fulfill its obligations to insurance policyholders 

and other systemically important customers. 

Q.4. Continuing risk posed by AIG—During the hearing, you were 

asked about the continuing risks posed by the Financial Products 

subsidiary of AIG. When specifically questioned about the risk 

posed by derivative contracts held by Financial Products which 

have been reduced from a notional value of $2.7 trillion to $1.5 trillion, you stated that the notional value of these contracts was not 

an appropriate measure of the risk posed and offered to provide a 

more accurate number. Accordingly, we request that you provide a 

better estimate of the continuing risks posed by the outstanding derivatives contracts issued by Financial Products. 
61 

A.4. The continuing risk posed by Financial Products (FP) cannot 

be measured using any single metric, such as the number of contracts or trade positions outstanding, gross notional size of the 

portfolio, number of counterparties, and gross market risk sensitivities (D V01, delta, vega, gamma, etc.). These single metrics 

provide individual perspectives on the question. 

To be more specific, a trade can generate an enormous amount 

of market and credit risk, and therefore looking only at trade count 

is insufficient to draw a meaningful inference about the risk posed 

by FP. Similarly, a book of trades with a very large gross notional 

value, but that is short dated and has a low net market risk profile 

is something that may pose relatively little risk to FP and the financial system. Reliance on any single metric misses the complexity of the continuing risk posed by FP and likely over-estimates 

risk along some dimensions and under-estimates risk among others. Both FP and the USG review a wide range of metrics to assess 

FP’s risk profile to guide the risk reduction process. Progress has 

been made along all of the dimensions cited above, and work continues in this regard. 

Q.5.a. Public–Private Investment Program—I am concerned with 

the details of the nascent Public–Private Investment Program. The 

SIGTARP’s recent report stated that ‘‘the private investors would 

thus enjoy 50 percent of the profits from this enhanced buying 

power, but only be exposed to less than 7 percent of the total losses 

if the fund were wiped out.’’ 

Is it fair to the taxpayer to structure the PPIP in such a manner 

that the private investors would enjoy such a large percentage of 

the profits relative to the losses? 

A.5.a. PPIP is designed to encourage private investors to take on 

reasonable risk to reinvigorate markets for a specific set of assets. 

The incentives provided in the program are focused, calibrated, and 

subject to significant oversight. 

The substantial due diligence by Federal authorities—Treasury, 

Federal Reserve, and FDIC—regarding the terms of government financing will ensure that there is a responsible balance between 

providing incentives for risk-taking and protecting the Federal government’s financial position. The Public–Private Investment Funds 

(PPIFs) are structured to give investors incentives not to overpay 

for the assets they buy. If the assets acquired by PPIFs underperform, the full amount of the private investors’ capital will be exposed, and the private investors will bear a share of the ‘‘first 

losses’’ as equity investors. 

Additionally, it is important to make a clear distinction between 

equity capital and debt financing. The equity capital raised from 

private investors will be matched by Treasury in each PPIF. Treasury will also provide debt financing for up to 100 percent of the 

total equity of the PPIF. 

In addition, PPIFs will be able to seek additional leverage 

through Legacy TALF or private debt financing, subject to total leverage requirements and covenants (when the Treasury-provided 

leverage equals 50 percent of the total equity of the PPIF). 

Q.5.b. What is the rationale for structuring the program in this 

manner? 
62 

A.5.b. The goal of the Legacy Securities PPIP is to restart the market for legacy securities, allowing banks and other financial institutions to free up capital and stimulate the extension of new credit. 

In achieving this goal, Treasury seeks to quickly maximize the inflow of private capital into the market while protecting the interests of U.S. taxpayers. Creating equity partnerships with private 

investors should serve both to protect the interests of taxpayers 

over the long-term and to help restore liquidity and enable price 

discovery for troubled assets in the short-term. The partnership approach is superior to the alternatives of either hoping for banks to 

gradually work these assets off their books or forcing the government to purchase the assets directly. If the government acts alone 

in directly purchasing legacy assets and securities, taxpayers will 

assume all of the myriad risks, including the risk that the taxpayers will overpay if government employees are setting the price 

for these complex and hard-to-value assets. By using attractive government financing and equity co-investment with private sector investors, substantial purchasing power will be created, making the 

most of taxpayer resources. Once loan and securities markets have 

been stabilized, loans and securities should trade more in-line with 

intrinsic value. Throughout the process, the government’s interests 

are well-aligned with those of the private sector. 

Q.5.c. How else could the program be structured to attract private 

investors without giving them such disproportionate upside compared to the downside? 

A.5.c. The Public–Private Investment Funds (PPIFs) are structured to give investors an appropriate upside in which private investors and Treasury share equally in potential gains while mitigating the likelihood that fund managers will overpay for the assets they buy, thereby incurring losses. If the assets acquired by 

PPIFs underperform, the full amount of the private investors’ capital will be exposed, and the private investors, as equity investors, 

will bear a share of the ‘‘first losses.’’ Moreover, fund managers will 

be required to invest their own capital in the funds and receive 

most of their compensation in the form of incentives tied to investment returns to private investors. 

Q.5.d. Finally, can we expect the banks to sell their legacy assets 

at a sufficient discount to attract private investors? Are you prepared to ask the regulators to press the banks to sell in order to 

clear their balance sheets? 

A.5.d. The PPIP is divided into two distinct programs: one for legacy securities and one for legacy loans. The securities program targets the purchase of assets that are marked-to-market and thus the 

lower prices are already reflected on bank balance sheets. In recent 

months, the prices of these legacy securities have slightly appreciated, and many financial institutions have raised substantial 

amounts of capital as a buffer against weaker than expected economic conditions. In order to purchase assets at a discounted price 

and attract private investors, the program will initially be modest 

in size. However, we are prepared to expand the amount of resources committed to the program should conditions deteriorate. 

This effort should help to free up balance sheet capacity to help facilitate lending, which is vital to our economic recovery. 
63 

The Legacy Loans Program (LLP) is being developed with the 

FDIC. On June 3, 2009, the FDIC publicly announced that the development of the program will continue but that a previously 

planned pilot sale of assets by open banks would be postponed. As 

a next step, the FDIC intended to test the funding mechanism contemplated by the LLP in a sale of receivership assets this summer. 

This funding mechanism draws upon concepts successfully employed by the Resolution Trust Corporation in the 1990s, which 

routinely assisted in the financing of asset sales through responsible use of leverage. On July 31, 2009, the FDIC publicly announced that the first test of the funding mechanism would commence during that week. 

One of the primary challenges of the LLP has been the willingness of healthy banks to sell loans at prices that investors were 

willing to pay, also known as a wide bid-ask spread. However, 

banks have been able to raise capital without having to sell bad assets through the LLP, which reflects renewed investor confidence 

in our banking system. The FDIC and Treasury will continue working on the LLP to be a tool for cleansing bank balance sheets. 

Q.5.e. With several banks announcing their intention to repay 

their TARP funds and with the stress test results reported to have 

been better than expected, some critics have argued that the PPIP 

is no longer necessary. Do you agree with this view? If not, when 

do you expect this plan be implemented? 

A.5.e. Financial market conditions have improved since the early 

part of this year, and many financial institutions have raised substantial amounts of capital as a buffer against weaker than expected economic conditions. However, these legacy assets are still 

highly illiquid. The difficulty of obtaining private financing on reasonable terms to purchase these assets has limited the ability of investors to reduce liquidity discounts in legacy assets. 

One of the PPIP’s primary objectives is to facilitate price discovery and reduce excessive liquidity discounts embedded in current legacy asset prices. As capital is freed up, U.S. financial institutions should engage in new credit formation. Furthermore, enhanced clarity regarding the value of legacy assets should increase 

investor confidence and enhance the ability of financial institutions 

to raise new capital from private investors. Finally, an inherent 

link exists between the new issue securitization market and the 

secondary market performance of legacy assets. As spreads compress in the legacy asset market, new securitization issuance 

should come to market at reasonable borrowing costs. The new 

issue securitization market is an absolutely critical component of 

lending in the economy. 

Q.6. Stress Tests—The Administration and the Federal Reserve expressed some relief about the stress test results for the top 19 

banking companies. It appears that the $75 billion in new capital 

needed by these companies can be obtained either from private investors or by drawing on remaining TARP funds. (At least 9 of 

these companies have already issued new common stock or announced plans to do so.) 

Still, several critics maintain that the assumptions for the test’s 

‘‘adverse scenario’’ were not stressful enough—especially the unem-
64 

ployment rate assumption of just over 10 percent, which many consider likely in the near future and not a worst case scenario. How 

do you respond to critics who say the stress tests were not stringent enough and who cite the IMF estimate of $4 trillion in credit 

losses? 

A.6. The Administration believes the stress tests took into account 

an appropriate range of scenarios in which the economy experienced an unexpected downturn. The loss estimates in the adverse 

scenario used in the regulatory assessments were generally in line 

with private sector estimates by the IMF and others. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR KOHL 

FROM TIMOTHY GEITHNER 

Q.1. Last fall, Congress appropriated $25 billion for the Advanced 

Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program, which provides grants and low-interest loans to U.S. automakers to retool 

factories to produce fuel efficient vehicles and component parts. Is 

the Treasury Department working with the Department of Energy 

to target factories which can be retooled? I have a Chrysler engine 

plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin that is on the list to be closed in 2010 

and using these loans to retool closing factories is a way to keep 

jobs in the U.S. 

A.1. The Department of Energy (DOE) will make the final determination as to which applicants will be approved for loans under 

the Advanced Technology Vehicle program. 

Q.2. One requirement for financial institutions who take TARP 

money is that they have to participate in the Administration’s 

Making Home Affordable Program. This requirement, however, 

does not apply retroactively to banks who received TARP money 

pre-February 2009. What steps is the Treasury taking to encourage 

the banks who have taken money prior to the requirement, to participate in the mortgage modification plan? Does the new requirement apply to the various TARP programs, or just to the financial 

institutions who receive capital purchase program money? 

A.2. To date, over 40 servicers have signed contracts to implement 

the Making Home Affordable (MHA) program. The names of participating servicers are listed on www.MakingHomeAffordable.com, 

the program’s Web site. Between loans covered by these servicers 

and loans owned or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, 

more than 85 percent percent of all loans in the country are now 

covered by the MHA program. Consistent with our earlier February 

18th guidance that ‘‘all Financial Stability Plan recipients going 

forward . . . participate in foreclosure mitigation plans consistent 

with Treasury’s loan modification guidelines’’, recipients of assistance in new Financial Stability Plan programs have adopted 

HAMP or are implementing plans consistent with Treasury’s guidelines. 

Q.3. Recently, Treasury announced that smaller financial institutions will be able to access TARP funds. Wisconsin is a small-bank 

State, with 300 institutions with less than $1 billion in assets. 

Many of these institutions would like to participate in the TARP 

program, but are denied because of strict eligibility requirements. 
65 

I understand that the Treasury does not want to put money into 

failing institutions, but many of these banks can survive if given 

the necessary tools. Would the Treasury consider modifying the eligibility requirements for community banks so more could participate? Do you anticipate the Treasury allowing smaller banks to 

participate in the capital assistance program? 

A.3. As you note, Treasury recently reopened the Capital Purchase 

Program (CPP) application window for banks with total assets less 

than $500 million. This reopening was intended to small and community banks that play a vital role in our financial system and a 

central role in our economy. This program is intended for healthy 

banks, and our standard for participation remains viability, as determined by the Federal banking regulators. 

Q.4. Recent business reports of Treasury’s preliminary approval to 

provide six life insurance companies with capital infusions has 

shown mixed reactions among the insurers about actually accepting 

the funds. In your opinion, why would some of the insurance companies that applied for funds last November now be skeptical of accepting the funds? Is it your opinion that some of the insurance 

companies who have been approved for TARP funds are in financially weak positions—weaker than those that are not receiving 

funds? How did the Treasury determine which insurance companies would be approved? Are all of the insurance companies who 

have been approved for TARP funds viable, or were some applications approved because these insurance companies are considered 

‘‘systemically important?’’ 

A.4. Many insurance companies qualified for CPP under the public 

term sheet issued in October 2008. We took additional time in processing these applications, as we needed to develop a framework for 

analyzing the particular characteristics of these institutions. We 

processed all insurance company applications under the existing 

criteria for participation in CPP-viability without CPP funds. All 

insurance companies that received preliminary approval were considered to be viable. Given the measured improvement of the economy, it is not surprising that some insurance companies have declined to accept CPP funds at this point. We understand that each 

institution makes capital plans according to its specific situation 

and that not all institutions feel that CPP funds are appropriate 

for their particular needs. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR BENNETT 

FROM TIMOTHY GEITHNER 

Q.1. In the legislative text of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which created TARP, which I supported, it states 

the purpose is to: ‘‘To provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of troubled assets for 

the purposes of providing stability to and preventing disruption in 

the economy.’’ 

This is the TARP I voted for. I voted against the second disbursement of the TARP money because I believed the immediate crisis 

had been mitigated. I continue to be concerned about how the taxpayer money is being used to effect things other than the func-
66 

tioning of the financial markets. As I stated, I saw TARP as a desperately needed capital investment in our financial system and 

economy. As I held multiple conferences with business and economic interests in my State of Utah I came to the conclusion that 

we had no other choice and no other viable option. Many, including 

the past Secretary, believed it likely that the taxpayer would make 

a return on their investment in this program. 

So my question is, is the taxpayer seeing a return on this expenditure? What is the likelihood that the full $700 billion will be 

returned? How can the taxpayer track repayment progress and the 

value of the collateral that was given in exchange? 

A.1. Taxpayers have already seen a direct financial return on some 

TARP investments. For example, in the Capital Purchase Program, 

the taxpayer earns a dividend of 5 percent of the senior preferred 

shares during the first five years of the program. This coupon steps 

up to 9 percent in the sixth year. There are currently over 600 participants in the program, and the taxpayer has received an estimated $6.67 billion in dividend payments under CPP as of September 1st. Through September 1st, 34 CPP recipients have fully 

repaid their investments worth $70.13 billion plus an additional 

$2.90 billion in warrants and related instruments. However, approximately $134 billion in CPP investments are still outstanding, 

and the ultimate repayment rates and earning from warrants will 

depend on business conditions of the recipients, future economic 

conditions, and other related factors. The full return taxpayers will 

see on these investments is hard to estimate because it is impossible to quantify the number of jobs and businesses that were 

saved by investments that pulled the financial system back from 

the brink. 

Taxpayers can track progress on all of the financial stability programs and investments, as well as repayments by institutions, on 

Treasury’s Web site. Specifically, taxpayers can look at investments 

within 2 business days of closing in our TARP transaction reports 

at www.financialstability.gov. In addition, Treasury will initially be 

publishing audited annual financial statements under Federal financial reporting standards on November 15th, which will provide 

detailed information on the value of the TARP portfolio. 

Q.2. I am told there is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $470 billion dollars right now on the sidelines that would 

like to have the opportunity to invest in our banking system, however it is currently prohibited by what I believe are antiquated 

rules governing who can control a bank and what defines ‘‘control’’. 

Should we continue to pour in taxpayer money or continue to go 

to foreign investment funds for capital to recapitalize our banks? 

Why shouldn’t we do everything we can to make this type of investment possible as long as it can be done within a safe and sound 

and well regulated system? 

A.2. Treasury does not have regulatory or supervisory authority regarding private equity investments in banking organizations. The 

Office of Thrift Supervision, the Board of Governors of the Federal 

Reserve System, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 

have supervisory authority in this area with regard to institutions 

subject to their jurisdiction. Treasury is currently reviewing devel-
67 

opments on this subject and is encouraging the banking agencies 

to develop consistent policies. 

Q.3. I am very concerned about the termination of the franchise 

agreements with Chrysler and GM dealers. I did not support the 

TARP disbursement to the auto companies because I feared just 

this case; government involvement is decisions the markets should 

be making. I recognize that something had to be done in this area 

but am concerned about the process and how this decision was 

made. I am also very concerned about the repercussions of this decision in communities across my State. Please share with us your 

understanding of the criteria for creating the list of who should 

continue as a Chrysler dealer and who should be forced to close 

their doors and also the timing of the termination notices. 

A.3. The Task Force was not involved in the decision-making process or implementation of the dealer consolidation plans. GM and 

Chrysler made independent decisions about the dealerships with 

which they planned to maintain franchisee agreements. 

GM and Chrysler’s dealer consolidation plans will be difficult for 

those dealers that no longer maintain franchise agreements. The 

sacrifices of the dealers, alongside those of the auto workers, suppliers, creditors, and other company stakeholders, have been necessary in order for these companies to once again compete as global 

enterprises. However, it is important to recognize that without the 

President’s commitment to an American auto industry and the efforts of the Task Force, both Chrysler and GM would have liquidated, potentially resulting in the complete elimination of their 

dealer networks across the country and accounting for roughly 

9,200 dealerships and countless jobs. Because of the successful 

Chrysler–Fiat partnership and the Task Force’s commitment to 

standing behind GM’s restructuring efforts, both companies are 

now positioned to move forward with plans that retain the substantial majority of their dealers. By helping these companies become 

more competitive, this process will result in more secure employment for tens of thousands of American workers and will be the 

best possible chance for the American auto industry to create more 

good jobs in the future. The Presidential Task Force on Autos is 

continuing to pursue efforts to help boost domestic demand for cars 

and is working to help ensure that financing is available for creditworthy dealers. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CRAPO 

FROM TIMOTHY GEITHNER 

Q.1. In your testimony, you state the President has made clear this 

restructuring process will require sacrifice by all stakeholders in 

the auto industry, including auto workers, debt and equity investors, dealers, suppliers, and the communities in which they operate. What impact do you believe that the planned closing of thousands of dealerships around the country will have on small businesses and rural communities and what criteria was used to determine which dealers would be closed and which dealers would remain open? 
68 

A.1. The Task Force was not involved in the decision-making process or implementation of the dealer consolidation plans. GM and 

Chrysler made independent decisions about the dealerships with 

which they planned to maintain franchisee agreements. 

GM and Chrysler’s dealer consolidation plans will be difficult for 

those dealers that no longer maintain franchise agreements. The 

sacrifices of the dealers, alongside those of the auto workers, suppliers, creditors, and other company stakeholders, have been necessary in order for these companies to once again compete as global 

enterprises. However, it is important to recognize that without the 

President’s commitment to an American auto industry and the efforts of the Task Force, both Chrysler and GM would have liquidated, potentially resulting in the complete elimination of their 

dealer networks across the country and accounting for roughly 

9,200 dealerships and countless jobs. Because of the successful 

Chrysler–Fiat partnership and the Task Force’s commitment to 

standing behind GM’s restructuring efforts, both companies are 

now positioned to move forward with plans that retain the substantial majority of their dealers. By helping these companies become 

more competitive, this process will result in more secure employment for tens of thousands of American workers and will be the 

best possible chance for the American auto industry to create more 

good jobs in the future. 

Q.2. I am hearing a lot of concern about the proposed Public–Private Investment Program and how it will work. Could you please 

explain how the private sector pricing of assets will function and 

how you close the bid-ask spread between the buyer and the seller? 

Many of the banks holding these assets were told they do not need 

to raise capital to meet the stress tests and there appears to be 

fewer reasons for these banks to participate. 

A.2. The PPIP is divided into two distinct programs: one for legacy 

securities and one for legacy loans. 

The Legacy Loans Program (LLP) is being developed with the 

FDIC. On June 3, 2009, the FDIC publicly announced that the development of the program will continue but that a previously 

planned pilot sale of assets by open banks would be postponed. As 

a next step, the FDIC intended to test the funding mechanism contemplated by the LLP in a sale of receivership assets this summer. 

This funding mechanism draws upon concepts successfully employed by the Resolution Trust Corporation in the 1990s, which 

routinely assisted in the financing of asset sales through responsible use of leverage. 

One of the primary challenges of the LLP has been the unwillingness of healthy banks to sell legacy loans at prices that investors are willing to pay. However, the banks’ demonstrated ability 

to raise capital without having to sell bad assets through the LLP 

reflects renewed investor confidence in our banking system. The 

FDIC and Treasury will continue to work on the LLP to be prepared to offer it in the future as a tool to help cleanse bank balance 

sheets. 

The legacy securities program targets the purchase of assets that 

are marked-to-market and thus the lower prices are already reflected on bank balance sheets. In recent months, the prices of 
69 

these legacy securities have appreciated slightly, and many financial institutions have been able to raise substantial amounts of capital as a buffer against weaker than expected economic conditions. 

This effort should help to free up balance sheet capacity to help facilitate lending, which is vital to our economic recovery. This has 

brought added stability to these markets and has narrowed the bidask spread. 

Q.3. When TALF was announced, policy makers expected the program to provide financing up to $200 billion in securities. At this 

point, the number is less than $20 billion. Do you consider this a 

success or are changes necessary? 

A.3. We are pleased with the results of TALF to date. Since we 

launched TALF with the Federal Reserve, there have been a total 

of approximately $80 billion of TALF eligible consumer ABS new 

issuance securities. Of that amount, approximately $44 billion or 

55 percent has been borrowed from TALF to purchase those securities. Issuer volume and investor participation has increased at a 

fast rate, and spreads are narrowing at a similar pace, indicating 

that where TALF is present, confidence is being restored. 

The following are some additional key statistics to illustrate the 

benefits of the TALF: 

• Eighty percent of TALF issuers experienced a reduction in 

their funding costs since the advent of the program. Nearly 

half have reduced funding costs by 100 basis points, and nearly 

one-quarter have done so by more than 200 basis points. 

• As of September, TALF has supported a total of 3.6 million individual loans and leases to consumers and small businesses, 

including approximately 380,000 loans to small business and 

approximately 760,000 to students. In addition, TALF is supporting approximately 130 million active credit card accounts. 

Q.4. Do you agree that no firm should be considered too big to fail 

and how do you reduce the potential size and scope of the spillovers 

so that policymakers can be confident that intervention is unnecessary? 

A.4. The recent financial crisis has taught us that some of our financial firms are so large, leveraged, and interconnected with the 

financial system that their failure poses a threat to overall financial stability. The problem wasn’t just that such firms were ‘‘Too 

Big.’’ The problem was that those firms had not been required to 

maintain sufficient capital and liquidity cushions. Under our proposal, higher capital charges for these firms (Tier 1 FHCs) would 

be used to account for the greater risk to financial stability that 

these firms could pose if they failed. To identify firms that should 

be subject to these higher standards, our proposal does not focus 

only on the size of a firm, it also considers the interconnectedness 

of a firm, and how important a firm is as a source of credit to 

American households and businesses. 

The resolution authority legislation that we have proposed would 

give the government the tools to establish a conservator or receivership for a failing financial firm in situations that threaten financial stability. As part of these tools, the conservator or receiver 

would have the authority to sell or transfer the assets or liabilities 
70 

of the institution in question, to renegotiate or repudiate the institution’s contracts, and to address the derivatives portfolio, thereby 

reducing the potential for further disruption. 

Q.5. It is my understanding that both FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair 

and SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro are supportive of a systemic 

risk council to monitor large institutions against financial threats. 

What are your thoughts on this issue? 

A.5. We agree that having a council of regulators to monitor emerging threats across the financial system is a critical part of regulatory reform. We propose the creation of a Financial Services 

Oversight Council to identify and help fill gaps in regulation and 

to facilitate coordination of policy and resolution of disputes among 

Federal financial regulators. The Council would play a key role in 

identifying which firms should be subject to regulation as Tier 1 

FHCs and it would be consulted about material prudential standards for these firms as well as important payment and settlement 

systems. It would have a permanent staff within Treasury and authority to gather information from any firm across the financial 

system. It would have the vital responsibility to identify emerging 

risks in the system. 

However, we believe that supervising the largest, most complex 

and interconnected institutions requires tremendous institutional 

capacity and organizational accountability. A single point of accountability for the regulation of the largest, most interconnected 

firms would be better positioned than a council to achieve that objective. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR VITTER 

FROM TIMOTHY GEITHNER 

Q.1. Taken over by the Federal government in September 2008, 

The Obama Administration has rolled out several initiatives since 

mid-February aimed at addressing the housing market. This Administration is using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as active players in the housing market in an effort to stimulate demand in the 

housing market. The two companies have an unlimited line of credit with the U.S. Treasury and have drawn down a total of $400 billion to date. 

A report to Congress earlier this month from the Federal Housing Finance Agency said ‘‘ . . . they [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] 

still face numerous significant challenges including building and 

retaining staff and correcting operational and credit management 

weaknesses that led to conservatorship.’’ 

For that reason the future of these two companies must be addressed by policymakers immediately. 

What is the plan get Fannie and Freddie out of receivership? Do 

we want them out, or is this Administration going to allow the two 

companies to be run by the government forever? 

A.1. Given the important role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 

play in the mortgage market, their participation in efforts to reduce 

preventable foreclosures is vital to speeding the housing recovery. 

The Administration has committed to undertaking a wide-ranging 

initiative to develop recommendations on the future of these insti-
71 

tutions. This process will require careful consideration of the appropriate role of the Federal government in the mortgage market. 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each have a $200 billion line of 

credit (for an aggregate of $400 billion) with the U.S. Treasury, and 

together have drawn down a total of $95.6 billion to date. 

Q.2. Some of the smaller financial institutions that took TARP 

funds did so because they are healthy banks and wanted to help 

the economy by increasing their ability to lend to consumers. 

Treasury has announced that banks that want to repay TARP 

funds will be required to raise capital in the private markets. 

While this requirement seems to make sense for some banks, particularly those that have relied on the FDIC’s Temporary Liquidity 

Guarantee Program which guarantees debt issued by banks, but for 

other banks whose health has not materially changed since they 

were given TARP this requirement seems overly burdensome and 

unnecessary. 

Will you develop a distinction for which banks should appropriately be required to raise private capital before allowing to 

repay TARP and those who should be allowed back TARP immediately? 

A.2. The banking regulators established the criteria for evaluating 

repayment requests and currently perform analysis of the request 

independent of Treasury. Treasury is not involved in this evaluation. Requests for more information on the analysis used to evaluate repayment requests should be directed to the regulators. 
72 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUPPLIED FOR THE RECORD

May 18, 2009 

Hon. Mark R. Warner 

459A Russell 

Washington, DC 20510 

Hon. Mel Martinez 

356 Russell 

Washington, DC 20515 

Dear Senator Warner and Senator Martinez: 

We write in support of S. 910, a bill that would amend the Emergency Economic 

Stabilization Act to add greater transparency to the Troubled Assets Relief Program 

(TARP). The bill would require the Treasury Department to establish a database 

that would provide ongoing, continuous and close to real-time updates of the distribution of TARP funds. Such a database would allow for detailed analysis of the 

effectiveness of the TARP money in stimulating prudent lending and strengthening 

the health of the financial institutions receiving the funds. 

While FinancialStability.gov is an excellent start for TARP oversight, there are 

many TARP activities and related data that are not captured there. S. 910 would 

integrate public and private sources to track the TARP funds, collecting all regulatory filings, internal models, financial models and analytics associated with the 

TARP assistance. Making all relevant information available in a centralized database, updated daily, will make it much simpler to determine whether the funds are 

being used as intended. 

We have one suggestion for improving the bill and that is to make it clear that 

the database must be publicly available. We believe this was your intent, but the 

text of the bill is not clear. Both government officials and members of the public 

have roles to play in ensuring the accountability of TARP, so the database should 

be public. 

A centralized, public database of information about the TARP would enable analysis of the data by the TARP Investigator General, the Congressional Oversight 

Panel, and the public. Giving the public and the oversight bodies access to this data 

will greatly increase citizen confidence in the TARP program. In addition, this will 

allow watchdog groups to analyze the data, reuse it and present it in novel ways, 

and uncover risky practices among TARP institutions. 

Thank you for advocating greater TARP transparency and effectiveness. We look 

forward to working with you and your colleagues for swift passage of S. 910. 

Sincerely, 

ARI SCHWARTZ, 

Center for Democracy and Technology. 

GARY BASS, 

OMB Watch. 

DANIELLE BRIAN, 

Project on Government Oversight. 

RYAN ALEXANDER, 

Taxpayers for Common Sense. 

PATRICE MCDERMOTT, 

OpenTheGovernment.org.