Good Luck Policing the Massive Virus Relief Fund, TARP Vets Say
A congressional panel will have limited power to oversee how the $500 billion is spent.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (right) speaks beside President Trump during a coronavirus task force news conference at the White House on March 17, 2020.
Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/UPI/BloombergThe massive $2 trillion relief package President Trump signed into law last week includes a $500 billion Treasury Department fund to bail out airlines and other large corporations harmed by the coronavirus pandemic. The job of policing it won’t be easy.
After a late push by Democrats to toughen oversight provisions, lawmakers agreed that the job will be split between a special inspector general and a congressional accountability committee—identical to the setup that oversaw the controversial $700 billion bank bailout in the 2008 financial crisis, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Those involved in the last bailout say that the effectiveness of this five-member panel will depend on whom congressional leaders choose for it, how they get along, and how willing the Trump administration is to comply with their requests for information, since they’ll lack the power to compel it.