Another (Senator) Richard Shelby (R) campaign ad fails the truth test [View all]

Source: al.com by Kyle Whitmire

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A new campaign ad going up this week portrays the Alabama Senator as a fierce opponent of Wall Street bailouts.

"Bailouts reward failure and punish taxpayers," the woman in the new spot, Shannon Riley, owner of One Stop Environmental, says. "You know that. Senator Shelby knows that. Then why is Washington so stupid?"

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The problem is that TARP was signed into law in October 2008 by then-President George W. Bush.

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But here's the thing — TARP actually worked. And it didn't merely save the financial industry from apocalyptic collapse. The federal government put $426.4 billion into TARP, and by the time the program ended six years later it got $441.7 billion back.

That's right. The federal government saved the banks and made money doing so. Really, when was the last time a government program made money?