The president is so desperate for ways to fight unemployment he issued a call Thursday for “fresh perspectives and new ideas.” Well, Nancy Pelosi has some. The House speaker wants to spend some of that hot, hot TARP money on job creation.

Don’t get too excited. The figure that congressional Democrats dropped on The Associated Press is $70 billion. You may recall the original TARP budget was $700 billion. By the AP’s tally, $210 billion remains or has been repaid, and Bank of America recently promised to return $45 billion.

So why only $70 billion? It seems there are rather complicated rules for how the funds can be spent — although it didn’t feel so complicated when the banks descended in a feeding frenzy. — PZS

AP via Google:

“The investment that we have in jobs ought to be paid for in TARP funds,” Pelosi said.

Using bailout authority for a jobs initiative would add billions to the $12.1 trillion national debt. Under the law, repaid TARP funds must be used to reduce the debt and unused bailout money is never borrowed.

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#bailout#congress#democrats#economy#house of representatives#jobs#money#nancy pelosi#politics#tarp#treasury