[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 192 (Thursday, December 17, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E3057-E3058]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  STOP ANY TARP EXTENSION ACT OF 2009

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BRAD SHERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 16, 2009

  Mr. SHERMAN. Madam Speaker, I have cosponsored the Stop Any TARP 
Extension Act of 2009. The position of the Treasury Department--that it 
is free to reuse any repaid TARP funds--is entirely contrary to the 
law. Due to the Department's unwillingness to adhere to the statutory 
language of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, it is 
necessary to terminate that Act.
  My office has inquired with the Treasury Department as to whether it 
possesses any legal opinion justifying the recycling of funds repaid by 
the banks. It should be noted that the Department has hundreds of 
lawyers and rarely does anything without a legal opinion, certainly not 
anything involving hundreds of billions of dollars. The Treasury 
Department refused to provide any legal opinion to Congress, implying 
that this is a case where he cannot find even one Department lawyer to 
reach the conclusion the Department would prefer.

[[Page E3058]]

  Terminating TARP today will immediately return more than $300 billion 
to the general treasury. This will give us the fiscal capacity to take 
the actions necessary to fight the great recession and get Americans 
back to work. I voted to enact the American Recovery and Reinvestment 
Act of 2009 in February and would be willing to support well designed 
job-creation programs again today.
  A disadvantage of keeping TARP alive is that the administration may 
select job-creating programs based upon whether they somehow fit a 
contrived and expanded interpretation of the TARP statute, rather than 
whether they constitute the best job creation strategy. Once the TARP 
funds are returned to the treasury, Congress should immediately 
consider job-creating and recession-fighting bills.

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