The Treasury Department is all about efficiency these days. The original bailout plan that Secretary Paulson proposed, which has been quietly dumped, was just three pages. I guess it’s no surprise, then, that the application to get some sweet, sweet bailout bucks from the TARP Capital Purchase Program is just two pages. No joke, Taxpayers for Common Sense actually got a hold of the thing. If you’re interested in landing a spare billion, give it a shot. It won’t take you more than five minutes.
Wasn’t one factor in the housing crisis the fact that lenders gave home loans to people without checking credit and obtaining documentation of assets, salary, and other signs of financial health? And yet you get piles of cash from the Treasury with less paperwork than what goes into car loans, student loans, and most credit cards?