The TARP we needed

It wasn't the one we got

Timothy Geithner.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Mark Wilson/Getty Images, KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images, natasaadzic/iStock)

Happy 10-year anniversary to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the most widely reviled piece of American public policy in the 21st century.

For those who've forgotten the official name, TARP was the emergency bank bailout passed in October 2008 to stem the financial crisis. The legislation initially allowed the Treasury Department to use $700 billion to prop up the financial industry, but $426 billion was ultimately spent. While President George W. Bush signed the bill, it passed Congress with more Democratic than Republican votes. And the actual administration of the bailout largely fell to the incoming Obama administration.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.