In August 2007, asset-backed securities (ABS), particularly those backed by subprime mortgages, suddenly became illiquid and fell sharply in value as an unprecedented housing boom turned into a housing bust. Losses on the many ABS held by financial firms depleted their capital. Uncertainty about future losses on illiquid and complex assets led to firms having reduced access, sometimes catastrophically, to the private liquidity necessary to fund day-to-day activities. In September 2008, the crisis reached panic proportions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that supported a large proportion of the mortgage market, were taken into government conservatorship. Lehman Brothers, a major investment bank, declared bankruptcy. The government acquired most of the equity in American International Group (AIG), one of the world's largest insurers, in exchange for an emergency loan from the Federal Reserve (Fed). These firms were seen by many, either at the time or in hindsight, as "too big to fail" firms whose failure would lead to contagion that would cause financial problems for counterparties or would disrupt the smooth functioning of markets in which the firms operated. One example of such contagion was the failure of a large money market fund holding Lehman Brothers debt that caused a run on many similar funds, including several whose assets were sound. The federal government took a number of extraordinary steps to address widespread disruption to the functioning of financial markets. Initially, the government approach was largely an ad hoc one, attempting to address the problems at individual institutions on a case-by-case basis. The panic in September 2008 convinced policymakers that a larger and more systemic approach was needed, and Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in October 2008. In addition to TARP, the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) implemented broad lending and guaranty programs. Because the crisis had so many causes and symptoms, the response tackled a number of disparate problems, and can be broadly categorized into programs that increased institutions' liquidity (access to cash and easily tradable assets), such as direct lending facilities by the Federal Reserve or the FDIC's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP); provided financial institutions with equity to rebuild their capital following asset write-downs, such as the Capital Purchase Program (CPP); purchased illiquid assets from financial institutions in order to restore confidence in their balance sheets in the eyes of investors, creditors, and counterparties, such as the Public-Private Partnership Investment Program (PPIP); intervened in specific financial markets that had ceased to function smoothly, such as the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF); used public funds to prevent the failure of troubled institutions that were deemed by some "too big to fail" (TBTF) because of their systemic importance, such as AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. One possible schematic for categorizing the programs discussed in this report into these categories is presented in Table 1 . These programs all stopped extending credit years ago, soon after financial conditions normalized, and most have been wound down. A few still have legacy principal outstanding that has not yet been repaid, however. Although many arguments could be made for one particular form of intervention or another, the position could also be taken that the form of government support was not particularly important as long as it was done quickly and forcefully because what the financial system lacked in October 2008 was confidence, and any of several options might have restored confidence if it were credible. Some critics dispute that view, arguing that the panic eventually would have ended without government intervention, and that some specific government missteps exacerbated the panic. Congress exercises oversight responsibilities for the government's crisis response, through existing oversight committees and newly created entities such as a Special Inspector General for the TARP (SIGTARP), a Congressional Oversight Panel, and a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) were also tasked by statute with reporting on various aspects of the crisis response. This report reviews the costs of new programs introduced, and other actions taken, by the Treasury, Fed, and FDIC. Figure 1 presents the programs discussed in this report by organization, with programs in the overlapping circles denoting joint programs. It does not cover long-standing programs, such as the Fed's discount window, mortgages guaranteed and securitized by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Ginnie Mae, respectively, or FDIC deposit insurance and receivership of failed banks. The primary goal of the various interventions was to end financial panic and restore normalcy to financial markets. In this sense, the programs were arguably a success—based on traditional measures of market turbulence, such as the "TED Spread" (the difference between the 3-month LIBOR [London Interbank Offer Rate] and the 3-month Treasury rates), overall financial conditions significantly improved in late 2008 and returned to precrisis levels by mid-2009, although some specific markets took longer to rebound. The goal of intervening at zero cost to the taxpayers was never the best measure of success because nonintervention would likely have led to a much more costly loss of economic output that indirectly would have worsened the government's finances. Further, the goal of maximizing return (or minimizing risk) to the government could work at odds with other policy goals, such as restoring investor confidence in the programs' recipients and encouraging voluntary participation in the government programs. Nevertheless, an important part of evaluating the government's actions is evaluating whether financial normalcy was restored at a minimum cost to the taxpayers. One can distinguish in the abstract between funds provided to solvent companies and those provided to insolvent companies. For insolvent firms with negative net worth at the time of intervention, the government's chances of fully recouping losses are low. For solvent firms, it should be possible, in principle, to provide funds at a low ultimate cost, or even profit, to the taxpayers. In a panic, investors typically refuse to provide funds to firms because they are unable to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy firms, and so they err on the side of caution. For those private investors who perceive profitable opportunities to lend or invest, not enough liquidity may be available to do so. In this situation, the government can theoretically provide those funds to healthy firms at what would normally be a profitable market rate of return. In practice, the challenge is that the government is arguably no more able to accurately distinguish between healthy firms and unhealthy firms than private individuals are, so some widely available lending facilities are likely to be accessed by firms that will ultimately prove to be insolvent, and this is a possible source of long-term cost for a widely available facility. At different times, news sources put the "potential cost to taxpayers," "amount taxpayers are on the hook for," and "taxpayer exposure" as a result of the financial crisis as high as $23.7 trillion. These totals were reached by calculating the maximum potential size of programs or using the total size of markets being assisted when the programs have no announced potential size, and by further ignoring that at least some of the money that the government outlaid would eventually be paid back. Even official estimates that accounted for expected future repayment initially projected large losses. For example, in March 2009, CBO projected that the government would ultimately pay a subsidy of $356 billion on TARP funds. Actual financial results were quite different from these headlines and from the more sober early estimates; unlike typical government programs, outlays in most of the programs countering the financial crisis were paid back in full with interest. Altogether, the financial crisis programs covered in this report brought back more in principal repayments and income than was paid out. The vast majority of individual programs, including all Federal Reserve facilities, have already taken in more money than was paid out by the government (see Table 2 ). Even in those programs where losses were realized on specific transactions, such as the Capital Purchase Program, income from other transactions was more than sufficient to absorb those losses and still produce a net gain for the government. Programs in Table 2 include both broadly based liquidity programs that could conceptually be structured to minimize the potential for losses, such as Fed lending facilities, and direct assistance to troubled companies, such as AIG, that were expected to generate losses. Four programs still have assistance outstanding. Of those four programs, three (GSE preferred shares, CPP, and GSE debt purchases) have already generated net income in excess of remaining principal outstanding (see Table 2 ). In other words, even if the value of all outstanding principal were written down to zero, these programs would still generate positive net income to the government. The GSE assistance remains outstanding because their government conservatorship, initiated in September 2008 in response to their financial difficulties, has not yet been addressed. The other program, the Treasury's Community Development Capital Initiative, may ultimately generate positive net income for the government, but to date, the net income does not exceed the outstanding principal (see Table 3 ). Three programs realized net losses when assistance was exhausted (see Table 4 ). Note that while two of those recipients (GM and Chrysler) failed during the financial crisis and received funding through emergency financial programs, they were not financial institutions. Thus, when limited to programs to aid the financial sector, only one program has realized losses for the government, whereas 19 have realized gains. Altogether to date, realized gains across the various programs exceed realized losses by tens of billions of dollars. Note that generating positive net income does not necessarily mean that these programs made an economic profit for the government. The government had to borrow, incurring interest payments, to finance these programs.