I disagree, but if you want to make a specific claim about something in TARP that was particularly disastrous, we can certainly discuss it. I do believe that as it was implemented and then re-implemented, it turned into something bad. But TARP as originally passed was not intended to be used, for example, to take over the car industry.
And while I can imagine there was another way to accomplish what they did, TARP pretty much single-handedly stopped the collapse of our economy, simply by providing a temporary backstop for valuable assets that had to be sold but for which there were no investors because of a combination of abject fear and the lack of available cash caused by further fear.
And for most everything TARP was used for in the first few months, and pretty much everything except the auto industry bailout, the government was able to sell off the assets in short order, and generally for profit.
Proper regulation ahead of time could have circumvented the need for TARP, but I believe TARP or something like TARP was necessary.
But I so dislike the government intervening, that I do not fault anybody for opposing TARP, and I don’t make my decision on who to support based on whether they supported TARP or not. I think TARP is just something that happened, that hopefully will never happen again, and for which I think we learn little about a candidate.
TARP was nothing ore than a bailout. As a constitutional conservative, I oppose all subsidies and bailouts.
No, it didn't. All it did was bail out financial firms that made bad decisions. Let them fail.