Of the companies bailed out by the government, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the most likely to be the most expensive ones to completely bailout. Ever since the assistance program was launched, the Fanny Mae has already received $34.2 billion and Freddie, 51.7 billion.
While these figures combined are still lower compared to the $117.5 billion given to insurance giant AIG and the collective $200 billion given to the largest banks, the figures have shown that the bailouts for Freddie and Fannie have gone way beyond the estimates.
A comment by TARP overseer Neil Barofsky created an uproar prompting people to wonder how much will the government actually be spending to bail the economy out. Barofsky, the special inspector general for TARP, said that the whole bailout might leave taxpayers $23.7 trillion in the hole.
This gave reason to critics to blast the government’s efforts. Still, the Treasury Department argued back that this number was overblown. Barofsky clarified this, stating that the actual amount outstanding at this point in time is closer to $3 trillion. The larger figure assumes that the rescue program goes the full nine and suffers total losses.
Source: CNN
