Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said the U.S. government should let Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. pay back their funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Financial Times reported Friday.
In an interview, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee said that if President Barack Obama's administration denies Goldman and JPMorgan's request to repay, it would miss out an a political opportunity to show taxpayer dollars flowing back into government coffers.
He also warned he expects politics will prevent Congress from authorizing any more financial bailout funds, and he didn't rule out the possibility of nationalizing banks.
He raised the possibility of imposing debt-for-equity swaps on financial institutions' bondholders if the government's stress-tests results show banks need to boost capital.
Frank said the government's response to the financial crisis has been good overall, but he criticized the administration's handling of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
"They made a mistake with Geithner: they put him out there when he wasn't ready," he said. "Geithner sometimes gives the impression that he's giving a bar mitzvah speech and his voice is going to crack."
