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Empresas y finanzas

U.S. oversight panel chief: TARP not a "slush fund"


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury must seek Congressional approval if it wants to funnel some of its $700 billion bailout fund to jobs programs that do not involve financial services firms as intermediaries, a key overseer said on Wednesday.

    Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, told CNBC television that the Obama administration cannot simply spend TARP funds "in a jobs program somewhere else." The panel earlier on Wednesday released a report criticizing TARP for failing to adequately address the home foreclosure crisis and the contraction in credit in the U.S. economy.

    "It is not simply a slush fund that can be used on anything anyone wants to do, no matter how worthy," Warren said of TARP.

    (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)