Just a bill...

Bakersfield Congressman Kevin McCarthy recently touted a couple of bills he introduced to increase accountability with the “troubled asset relief program,” or TARP, bailout funds for banks.

I wanted to know more about it; this is what he said.

McCarthy says his goal is to ensure that as banks repay that money, it goes to pay down the national debt.

How’s that work, I wondered? I mean, when they GOT the loans, weren’t the terms laid out about how, when and to whom repayments would be made? Like on my car loan?

Nope.

According to McCarthy, the only vague guidelines on repayment so far have come from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who has said he’s not looking at individual banks, but rather the health of the overall financial system before allowing banks to start giving money back.

McCarthy’s bills would A) establish a procedure for payback and B) require the money go to the debt rather than back into the treasury where it could be used for more TARP funding.

McCarthy, a member of the Financial Services Committee (and as a Republican, very much in the minority), doesn’t think his bills (HR2118 and HR2119) will be killed outright.

“I think it’ll go before committee and we’ll have a line of people coming in and talking about it,” he said.

But he also doesn’t think they’ll be signed into law (he said as he quoted me the “I’m just a bill on Capitol hill...” ditty from the Schoolhouse Rock commercials of my childhood).