How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love TARP
For conservatives, possibly the most startling outcome of The Great Recession is the amazing success of TARP. Economists and pundits continue to debate the efficaciousness and efficiencies of the stimulus and auto bailouts, but almost every expert agrees that TARP not only rescued the financial markets from a free-fall that would have destroyed the world economy, but with less that $50 billion of the original money outstanding, the taxpayers may well actually make money.
In light of this, what's a principled, small-government conservative, not just a "RINO," supposed to do? After all, you have big government borrowing money to give to bankers who made bad decisions?! Is not the terrible Road to Serfdom paved thusly?!
1. Bite the Bullet: We have to admit, at least quietly, that TARP was successful despite the fact that we hated it. Principled liberals admitted they were wrong about The Surge (e.g., Peter Beinart, and implicitly Barack Obama by replicating it in Afghanistan), and conservatives must now do likewise with TARP. Like it or not, government actually worked, and since facts are stubborn things, there just ain't no use in arguing with TARP's numbers.
2. Swear It Won't Happen Again: This was a once-in-a-generation crisis. But even before the next time some politically-connected entity teeters on failure and has to be saved with tax dollars, we can and should stomp our feet and say "Ne'er Again!' Averting a Great Depression? Grudgingly. Avoiding job losses, a fall in stock prices, and possibly another recession? Tough tacos, jack -- you're in America and we don't subsidize failure.
3. Make the Stimulus the New TARP: By highlighting the fact that the bipartisan TARP is now paid back, we can juxtapose it to the failure of the Democrats' stimulus debacle. The line should be this: "Even TARP is all but paid back! What the hell happened to all that $800 billion in borrowed stimulus money? When does that money get paid back?" The stimulus failed, people hate it, and it's the Democrats' baby. Combining that with their reckless healthcare plan and anger can be rightly shunted into truly failed Big Government, not the sadly necessary (but happily successful) TARP intervention.
In the end, restricting government's scope in a democracy can only happen when government functions properly. By focusing the electorate’s attention on where government is actually failing to deliver, we have a much better chance of preventing further expansion. And when the next crisis comes (and it will), we will have the credibility to be entrusted with its management.
Unlike 2008.