Frank: New Bank Bailout Grants will be Protected

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Rep. Barney Frank asserted Thursday that the Obama administration can be more trusted than the Bush administration to ensure that banks do not misuse money they get from a $700 billion bailout fund.

Frank, D-Mass., denied in a nationally broadcast interview that Congress has failed to put strings on these loans to ensure that banks do not pay extravagant executive bonuses or take expensive retreats.

“We didn’t give them the second half ($350 billion) with no strings attached,” Frank said on CBS’s “The Early Show.”

“The Treasury Department has agreed to impose very strict rules,” the congressman added, “and I think it would be a very big mistake to assume that the Obama administration is going to be as lax as the Bush administration.”

Frank did acknowledge that a bill he pushed to place specific limits on bonuses and other perks is not likely to get through Congress.

“The error is to assume that because the Bush administration resisted compensation restrictions … that the Obama administration is going to do the same,” he said.

“In fact, the Obama administration is behaving very differently,” Frank said …

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