{"id":1655,"date":"2008-12-08T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp\/index.php\/2008\/12\/08\/open-letter-to-u-s-congress-demand-real-bailout-transparency\/"},"modified":"2016-12-13T07:51:38","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T07:51:38","slug":"open-letter-to-u-s-congress-demand-real-bailout-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2008\/12\/08\/open-letter-to-u-s-congress-demand-real-bailout-transparency\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter to U.S. Congress: Demand Real Bailout Transparency!"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 08, 2008<\/p>\n

An Open Letter to the United States Congress:<\/h2>\n

  <\/h2>\n

 Demand Real Bailout Transparency! <\/h2>\n

Dear Member of Congress:<\/p>\n

We, the undersigned advocates for open and accountable government, are writing to express our deep concern that the executive branch has provided no transparency into how taxpayer money is being spent and the decision-making process behind the financial bailout initiatives. We are also concerned that Congress has to date provided little oversight of these initiatives.<\/p>\n

We applaud your decision to turn down the Treasury Department's request for a blank check, but nearly half of the $700 billion fund for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, has already been distributed with very little transparency and almost no oversight. Recently, the public learned that an additional $800 billion is being spent by the Federal Reserve, which as an independent entity does not need congressional approval to lend money to banks or, in "unusual and exigent circumstances," to other financial institutions. To date, the cumulative commitment of taxpayer dollars to financial rescue initiatives is estimated to be $8.5 trillion.<\/p>\n

We urge you to use your oversight authority to make the financial bailout more accountable to the American public, and your legislative authority to make it more transparent. We ask that you work with Congressional leadership to ensure that there is effective legislative oversight over the entire program.<\/p>\n

Any credible solution to the economic crisis must be grounded in transparency and to ensure full accountability must include best practice whistleblower protection for public and private employees connected to the bailout. As suggested in a recent opinion piece in Legal Times, "the best way to protect the interests of taxpayers is by ensuring that what is done is fully disclosed to the public." Currently, however, the Department of the Treasury has been slow to notify the public of bailout money dispersals and has neglected to require recipients of bailout money to disclose how the money is used. We request that you direct that all reports mandated by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 be made publicly available in a usable format, whether the law currently specifies public disclosure or not.<\/p>\n

Under public disclosure laws, citizens can only gain access to information actually collected by the government. Therefore, public accountability necessitates that you enact changes in law to require the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and any other government entities involved in the bailout, to begin collecting information on certain aspects of how bailout aid is spent by recipients, including:<\/p>\n