Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was a United States federal law enacted during the Great Recession, which created federal programs to "bail out" failing financial institutions and banks. The bill was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, passed by the 110th United States Congress, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. It became law as part of Public Law 110-343 on October 3, 2008. It created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which utilized congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds to purchase toxic assets from failing banks. The funds were mostly redirected to inject capital into banks and other financial institutions while the Treasury continued to examine the usefulness of targeted asset purchases.^[1][2]

A financial crisis had developed throughout 2007 and 2008 partly due to a subprime mortgage crisis, causing the failure or near-failure of major financial institutions like Lehman Brothers and American International Group. Seeking to prevent the collapse of the financial system, Secretary of the Treasury Paulson called for the U.S. government to purchase several hundred billion dollars in distressed assets from financial institutions. His proposal was initially rejected by Congress, but the ongoing financial crisis and lobbying by President Bush ultimately convinced Congress to enact the proposal as part of Public Law 110-343.

Early estimates for the bailout's risk cost were as much as $700 billion; however, TARP recovered $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested, earning a $15.3 billion profit (an annualized rate of return of 0.6%), which may have been a loss when adjusted for inflation.^[3]