Monday, September 17, 2012

Executive Orders by GW Bush - Office of Homeland Security and TARP Authority

Creating the Office of Homeland Security - President George W. Bush  

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. left thousands of innocent people dead, President Bush stated he would establish a Cabinet-Level office charged with "the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks." The following executive order, issued on Oct. 8, 2001 establishes that office, the Office of Homeland Security. Also on October 8, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge was sworn in as the first secretary of the new Cabinet-level agency. The Office of Homeland Security will coordinate and oversee the terrorism preparedness and prevention efforts and budgets of over 40 federal agencies.


Executive Order Establishing Office of Homeland Security

GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
October 8, 2001.
Executive Order
Establishing the Office of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Establishment. I hereby establish within the Executive Office of the President an Office of Homeland Security (the "Office") to be headed by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security.
Sec. 2. Mission. The mission of the Office shall be to develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks. The Office shall perform the functions necessary to carry out this mission, including the functions specified in section 3 of this order.
Sec. 3. Functions. The functions of the Office shall be to coordinate the executive branch's efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.
  Executive Order - Office of Homeland Security
usgovinfo.about.com/library/bills/bleohomeland.htm
Bush originator of TARP

This was a George Bush program. It was signed into law on Oct. 3, 2008. On Dec. 19, 2008, then President Bush, signed an executive order to declare that TARP funds could be spent on any program he personally deemed necessary. The law was passed by a Democratically controlled congress, but 34 Senate Republicans and 91 House Republicans voted for the bill. This included the man who wants to be the next Speaker of the House, John Boehner.
  
I refer specifically to the bank bailout better known as TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program). This was not a President Obama program. This was a George Bush program
Florida Sun Sentinel October 4, 2010


On November 12, 2008, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson indicated that reviving the securitization market for consumer credit would be a new priority in the second allotment.[15][16]

On December 19, 2008, President Bush used his executive authority to declare that TARP funds may be spent on any program that Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson,[17] deemed necessary to alleviate the financial crisis.

On December 31, 2008, the Treasury issued a report reviewing Section 102, the Troubled Assets Insurance Financing Fund, also known as the "Asset Guarantee Program." The report indicated that the program would likely not be made "widely available.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008. It was a component of the government's measures in 2008 to address the subprime mortgage crisis.

The TARP program originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reduced the amount authorized to $475 billion. By March 28, 2012, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated that total disbursements would be $431 billion and estimated the total cost, including grants for mortgage programs that have not yet been made, would be $32 billion.[1] This is significantly less than the taxpayers' cost of the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s but does not include the cost of other "bailout" programs (such as the Federal Reserve's Maiden Lane Transactions and the Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). The cost of the former crisis amounted to 3.2 percent of GDP during the Reagan/Bush era, while the GDP percentage of the latter crisis' cost is estimated at less than 1 percent.[2] 

 In the original plan presented by Secretary Paulson, the government would buy troubled (toxic) assets in insolvent banks and then sell them at auction to private investor and/or companies. This plan was scratched when Paulson met with United Kingdom's Prime Minister Gordon Brown who came to the White House for an international summit on the global credit crisis.[citation needed] George Soros claims he had language inserted into the bill at the last minute which permitted this, then once the bill was passed and signed, lobbied for the changes that occurred.[13][14] Prime Minister Brown, in an attempt to mitigate the credit squeeze in England, merely infused capital into banks via preferred stock in order to clean up their balance sheets and, in some economists' view, effectively nationalizing many banks. This plan seemed attractive to Secretary Paulson in that it was relatively easier and seemingly boosted lending more quickly. The first half of the asset purchases may not be effective in getting banks to lend again because they were reluctant to risk lending as before with low lending standards. To make matters worse, overnight lending to other banks came to a relative halt because banks did not trust each other to be prudent with their money.
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
www.archives.gov › Federal RegisterExecutive Orders


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