One of the disturbing trends of the financial crisis hasn’t simply been the willy-nilly shifting of costs onto the taxpayer, even when there were investors in risk capital, aka bondholders and stockholders, who properly should take the hit first. As distressing is the repeated, flagrant disregard for the rule of law, starting with the Treasury Secretary being put outside the reach of the courts in his oversight of the TARP, the use of the Fed and FDIC to circumvent budgetary requirements, failure to resolve banks in danger of being insolvent as required under the law, and rampant signs of cronyism (for instance, participation in the legacy securities program being limited to a few large players).

In a further sign of an imperial Presidency in action, the Washington Post describes how the Obama administration is circumventing bailout legislation by channeling fund through various entities, then contending the the end recipients aren’t subject to Congressional requirements. Huh?

Notice that the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, a Democrat, is none too happy.

From the Washington Post:

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials…. The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials. Although some experts are questioning the legality of this strategy, the officials said it gives them latitude to determine whether firms should be subject to the congressional restrictions, which would require recipients to turn over ownership stakes to the government, as well as curb executive pay.

Yves here.The US hass a rules based rather that a principles based legal system, but the flip side is that my impression was that in grey areas, courts looked hard at the legislation for intent. And the intent here was crystal clear. But this crowd loves the sort of deal structuring that would do a tax evader proud. Back to the story:

The administration has decided that the conditions should not apply in at least three of the five initiatives funded by the rescue package. This strategy has so far attracted little scrutiny on Capitol Hill, and even some senior congressional aides dealing with the financial crisis said they were unaware of the administration’s efforts…. Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the congressional conditions should apply to any firm benefiting from bailout funds. He said he planned to review the administration’s decisions and might seek to undo them. “We have to make certain that if they are using government money in any sort of way, there should be restrictions,” he said….. In one program, designed to restart small-business lending, President Obama’s officials are planning to set up a middleman called a special-purpose vehicle — a term made notorious during the Enron scandal — or another type of entity to evade the congressional mandates….. In another program, which seeks to restart consumer lending, a special entity was created largely for the separate purpose of getting around legal limits on the Federal Reserve, which is helping fund this initiative. The Fed does not ordinarily provide support for the markets that finance credit cards, auto loans and student loans but could channel the funds through a middleman. At first, when the initiative was being developed last year, the Bush administration decided to apply executive-pay limits to firms participating in this program. But Obama officials reversed that decision days before it was unveiled on March 3 and lifted the curbs, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. Obama’s team is also planning to exempt financial firms that participate in a program designed to find private investors to buy the distressed assets on the books of banks. But Treasury officials are still examining the legal basis for doing so. Congress has exempted the Treasury from applying the restrictions in a fourth program, which aids lenders who modify mortgages for struggling homeowners….. Legal experts said the Treasury’s plan to bypass the restrictions may be unlawful. “They are basically trying to launder the money to avoid complying with the plain language of the law,” said David Zaring, a former Justice Department attorney who defended the government from lawsuits involving related legal issues. “They are trying to create a loophole to ignore Congress, and I think the courts will think that it’s ridiculous.”

The Administration defends these actions as necessary, of course.