Last week, the Treasury Department bought a $5 billion stake in GMAC as part of a plan to transform the lender, formerly the financial arm of General Motors, into a bank holding company. The New York Times reported that GMAC wanted to become a bank mainly so it could be considered a "financial institution" and thereby qualify for money from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Yet the Treasury used TARP funds to invest in GMAC. In other words, if the Times has the story right, GMAC received TARP money so it could be eligible for TARP money.
This paradox highlights the lawlessness of the Bush administration, which has ignored statutory restrictions on TARP and treated it as a slush fund for politically favored supplicants. Although he has criticized President Bush strongly for flouting the law and exceeding his constitutional powers, President-elect Barack Obama has applauded the latest manifestation of that tendency.
GMAC, which lends money to car dealers and buyers and also has dabbled disastrously in mortgages, has been bleeding billions for more than a year. In November, when it asked the Federal Reserve Board for permission to become a bank, the decision was based largely on the understanding that only financial institutions could receive help from TARP. 
That was the Treasury's position, and it's not hard to understand why. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, which created TARP, authorized Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson "to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, troubled assets from any financial institution," the aim being "to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system."
But by the time the Federal Reserve approved GMAC's application, Paulson had decided that GM and Chrysler, which make not loans but cars, nevertheless could receive $17.4 billion from TARP to tide them over until Congress approved more aid. His epiphany about the meaning of the TARP law came immediately after Congress declined to approve emergency short-term assistance for the carmakers.
"While the purpose of (TARP) and the enabling legislation is to stabilize our financial sector," Paulson said, "the authority allows us to take this action. Absent Congressional action, no other authorities existed to stave off a disorderly bankruptcy of one or more auto companies."
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