NO! I don't ever remember it being that low.
RE: NO! I don’t ever remember it being that low.
If we want to go into technicalities...The original TARP was allocated in two $350 billion chunks.
The first $350B was approved by Congress and Bush signed it.
Bush spent about $300B of it to shore up the banks.
Had the TARP stopped there, I don’t think this would cause much huge commotion ( many people will express concern, but there would be no Tea Party activism ).
Then Obama got elected and things started to unwind quickly...
The car companies ran in to trouble and Obama’s team asked Bush to use the unspent TARP to bail out the automakers. At that point Bush was already made out by the media as the worst President(which I do not agree with) ever so not wanting to get any more flack, he relented. BIG MISTAKE !!
The TARP provisions stated that if Bush did not authorize for the additional $350 B before he left office, it would be left unspent.
Obama’s team went back out to Bush again and asked him to authorize the additional $350B so the Obama team could use as they needed. He relented again...so Bush actually only spent $300b to shore up the banks and that money got paid back in interest...
However, the money that has been flushed down the toilets of GM/Chrysler, AIG and the GSE will never be recovered and are mostly Obama’s spending... ( let’s not even mention the wholesale disregard of our bankrupcy laws where debt holders of GM and Chrysler were royally screwed in favor of the Labor unions ).