Tarp, Obama Administration | featured news

The Obama administration has begun monitoring the high-level board meetings of nearly 20 banks that received emergency taxpayer assistance but repeatedly failed to pay the required dividends, according to Treasury Department officials and documents. And it may soon install new directors on some of their boards.

The Obama administration, buoyed by a resurgent Wall Street, plans to cut the projected long-term cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program by more than $200 billion, in a move that could smooth the way for the introduction of a new jobs program.

A majority of Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Friday called on the Obama administration to let the authority to tap a $700 billion financial bailout fund expire at the end of the year as scheduled.