A government watchdog says federal officials weren’t entirely honest with the public about the health of the first 9 financial firms that got federal bailouts, according to a report released Monday.

Bailout special inspector general Neil Barofsky says in an audit that Treasury Department officials painted an overly rosy picture, creating “unrealistic expectations,” when they called the first bailout banks “healthy” institutions that would be able to lend more with government help.

“It is not our intent to suggest that government officials should make public their concerns over the financial health of individual institutions, but rather that government officials should be particularly careful, even in a time of crisis, of describing their actions (and the rationales for such actions) in an accurate manner,” the report stated.

Treasury appeared to disagree with the assessment of the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SigTARP), saying “people may differ” on the phrasing of the original bailout announcements.

“Any review of the announcements must be considered in light of the unprecedented circumstances in which they were made,” wrote TARP chief Herb Allison in response to the SigTARP report.

Source/Full Story: money.cnn.com
Technorati Tags: Treasury Department, Neil Barofsky, TARP

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