Representative recommends Congressional Oversight Panel and its chair

The federal government has not yet taken a tough enough line with Wall Street. That was part of Rep. Peter DeFazio's response last week when asked about the United States' economy.

He said both re-regulation and an investigation of Wall Street are needed - the investigation to identify, in detail, the problems in the finance industry.

He suggested looking at the work of the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was appointed to keep an eye on the Troubled Assets Relief Program, popularly known as TARP or the bank bailout, and its chair, Elizabeth Warren. The panel has pointed toward some of the shortcomings in the finance industry in the reports it has issued so far, but investigating what happened to bring the U.S. economy to this point is not its job and it has little power.

Warren, a Harvard bankruptcy law professor, was praised by DeFazio for her grasp of the situation and her ability to translate high finance into understandable language.

A bit of research on the Internet revealed some of what she is saying.

In February she said Henry M. Paulson Jr., the secretary of state under President George Bush, was not entirely honest about how the money would be used when he sold the program to Congress last year. Furthermore, the U.S. Treasury didn't get full value for the money it handed over to financial institutions.

In an interview with the Boston Globe earlier this month, Warren said the Treasury Department isn't good about responding to requests for information and "has not articulated its goals." That makes it difficult for the panel to evaluate whether TARP is successful.

She also indicated that what the government should be doing is not saving all financial institutions but keeping the economy going. For that, preserving a banking system is necessary, but not propping up all banks.

The oversight panel reports to Congress. Anyone who agrees with Warren that the economy involves more than Wall Street, would do well to let Congress know it should listen to the panel.

To read reports from the oversight panel, go online to cop.senate.gov/reports/.