From Fox News's website:
11 March, 2009
But the biggest question over transparency is yet to be answered -- whether the public will ever learn which banks received bailout billions, and how much the government paid for certain assets.
Recently, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders demanded Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke lift the veil on that issue.
"Tell us who they are," the senator told Bernanke.
"No, because the reason that it's counterproductive and will destroy the value of the program is that banks will not come," Bernanke said.
"Well isn't that too bad," Sanders said.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has promised to open up the bailout process. But like the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department does not want to name banks.
Sloan said this is a litmus test for Obama's commitment to transparency.
"It's taxpayer dollars, and we as taxpayers then have a right to know where that money is going," she said. "And I just can't understand why there should be any secrecy about that."
A top treasury official recently told Congress that the department couldn't adequately price the assets it bought in the first phase of the bailout. Republicans, though, say the software exists to do it and that taxpayers deserve to know.
