what you conveniently left out was that its only less by $100B (also one time vs recurring). Secondly it happened at the hand of a republican president and the democrat had to clean up the mess made by republican as always. one more thing the bank bailout was absolutely necessary if you did not want economy to collapse into a depression but none of the conservatives ever talk about all the banking deregulation (like graham beach leahy & glass stegal) that actually led to the conditions where financial system became so fragile that it had to be bailed out. Also, Govt actually made money on the TARP bailout after the funds were mostly returned.