The Congressional Oversight Panel (appropriately acronym'd "COP") of TARP asked the really big question that the architects of the program has yet to answer: What's the point of TARP?

The COP report was released to a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the program on Dec. 10. The hearing was a four-hour session of slappy face in which Congressmen lined up to express dismay and ask pointed questions of TARP executor Neel Kashkari and other TARP-related authorities like interim Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro, and COP members Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Jeb Henarsling (R-TX).

• Rep. Melvin Watt (D-NC): "People are asking me, 'Is Goldman Sachs running this country?...What are we doing giving $700 billion and there is this monopoly on who is controlling it. Nobody is accounting to anybody for it. And the perception, whether the reality is correct or not, the perception is that there is something sinister going on here."
• Rep. Virginia Brown-Waite (R-FL): "We have been sold a pig-in-a-poke and a bait-and-switch has occurred"
• Rep. Davis Scott (D-GA): "We've been lied to. We've been bamboozled. What we have here is one big mess."
• said Maxine Waters (D-CA): "You have done nothing...What is your resistance to helping homeowners stay in their homes?"

My personal favorite line of questioning came from Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) on the Treasury Department's rules on executive compensation, because it highlights just what a joke the executive compensation provisions in TARP are. See the clip:

Wall Street Journal: "Treasury Criticized on Hill Over TARP"

The Washington Post: "Panel Overseeing Bailout Criticizes Treasury Department"

The New York Times: "Blunt Advice for Treasury on Progress of the Bailout "

Portfolio: "T.A.R.P.: Tearing Apart the Rescue Plan"

Bloomberg: "Congressional Panel Overseeing U.S. Bailout Criticizes Treasury "

Reuters: "Lawmakers rap Treasury on bailout plan"

Associated Press: "Anger, doubt aired in financial bailout hearing"