Trump says he won't cooperate with bailout oversight, so what is he hiding?
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This raises the question, even before the first dollar is spent on the $500-billion business bailout in the measure, of what Trump expects to need hiding., congressional and public oversight of the spending is necessary to make sure that the bailout serves its purposes. “If you’re going to distribute the money without conditions attached ... your policy goals are not going to be achieved,” Neil M. Barofsky, who oversaw the spending from the 2008 bank bailout, told me.
The bill that emerged from Congress and that Trump signed seemed to avoid that pitfall. But with the stroke of a pen, Trump opened the way to finagling, waste and grifting.The oversight language in the virus bailout bill was the same as in the legislation that established his office, which oversaw spending from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, the 2008 bank bailout.
That language “was an important tool to have when parts of the administration [were] uncooperative, ' Borofsky told me Monday by email. “Just having that tool, and the threat of going to Congress, was very valuable in my experience, and losing it could impede the ability of the IG to the information it needs to full its mandate under the statute.”
The oversight provisions to which Trump objects include requirements that he consult with Congress on appointing the SIGPR and staff members of the oversight office, and language giving Congress a role in bailout spending made through the Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department.
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