Treasury seeks to redirect TARP funds to small businesses, homeowners

While emergency bailout funds helped avert a collapse of the financial system, the Treasury Department now thinks the money should be diverted to helping small businesses and homeowners, a Treasury official said.

Speaking before the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, assistant Treasury secretary Herbert Allison said TARP helped put large banks and the auto companies on a sounder footing.  

“It is time to set a new direction for the TARP,” Allison told the panel chaired by Elizabeth Warren, “to account for the recent improvements in capital markets and to address lingering weaknesses in housing markets and small business lending.”