Coming on the heels of the announcement that the Troubled Asset Relief Program would cost approximately $200 billion less than expected, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, announced that the TARP program would be extended until October 10, 2010. 

Understanding that while Wall Street and big business has had life saving monetary support from tax payers he said, "too many American families, homeowners, and small businesses still face severe financial pressure."  President Obama, in his speech at the Brookings Institution yesterday, promised that his administration would look for ways to offer lending to small businesses across the country in the absence banks lending despite record profits.  This move marks the seriousness with which the administration views the continued loss of jobs on a month per month basis in the US despite Novembers jobs lost only being 11,000.

Geithner laid out 3 limiting factors in the extension planned for TARP in 2010 saying,  "we will continue to mitigate foreclosure for responsible American homeowners as we take the steps necessary to stabilize our housing market.  We recently launched initiatives to provide capital to small and community banks, which are important sources of credit for small businesses.  We are also reserving funds for additional efforts to facilitate small business lending.  Finally, we may increase our commitment to the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which is improving securitization markets that facilitate consumer and small business loans, as well as commercial mortgage loans.  We expect that increasing our commitment to TALF would not result in additional cost to taxpayers."