This morning the Special Inspector for TARP released a report based on a survey of some 360 financial institutions that received TARP funds. The report finds that:

Many banks reported that TARP funds allowed them to increase lending for residential and commercial loans, small business loans, credit card loans, and other types of lending. Most firms reported multiple and sometimes interrelated uses; a majority of respondents’ reported that they used the funds primarily for lending, building capital reserves and investing...

Sounds like the survey provided SIGTARP with a rich dataset that allowed them to carefully analyze TARP funds expenditures.

Although the respondents reported that lending was an important use of funds, their responses generally did not quantify the amount of new lending or the incremental difference in lending based on use of TARP funds.

Or not.

And with the release of the latest SIGTARP report comes an excuse from Treasury as to why Treasury won't demand that TARP'd banks submit detailed reports on their lending activities to allow SIGTARP, Treasury, and outside analysts to systematically examine the use of TARP funds.

"Although it might be tempting to do so, it is not possible to say that investment of TARP dollars resulted in particular loans, investments or other activities by the recipient," Herbert M. Allison Jr., the assistant Treasury secretary who administers the rescue program, wrote in a letter to [SIGTARP Neil] Barofsky.

Well, this is more misguided than a deaf bat. You see, the genius of accounting is that it considers this very problem. If I receive a $100 monthly pay raise, and my monthly bar tab jumps by $100, I might not be able to tell you which martinis were funded by my raise, but I can say with some certainty that it would have been several fewer without that pay raise.

Just put the data into some analysts' hands, and trust me, we'll have a better idea about where TARP funds are going. Allison's excuse for not demanding more data from TARP'd banks is absurd.