This news is a bit old, but I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a late post. On June 10, Treasury released its May TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) report, providing an update for the bailout program. The big, "milestone" news from the report is that TARP repayments have now exceeded the remaining balance. According to the report, through May, TARP recipients paid back $194 billion, which is more than half of the total funds TARP has paid out ($384 billion, which includes everything, from the bank warrants to the AIG payments to the auto bailouts). In other words, TARP recipients have paid back $194 billion, meaning that the returned funds now outweigh the remaining balance.

Chalk up another set of economic data under the category of "information most informed people knew a long time ago, but that will really upset the Teabaggers," because the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Monthly Budget Review (MBR) for March, and, oh boy, are there some ugly numbers in there to cherry pick. With that said, there are some bright spots too.

Well, this is galling.

The Internal Revenue Service on Friday issued an exception to long-standing tax rules for the benefit of Citigroup and a few other companies partially owned by the government. As a result, Citigroup will be allowed to retain billions of dollars worth of tax breaks that otherwise would decline in value when the government sells its stake to private investors.