The TARP was passed as an emergency life line to troubled banks, but read this:

A small but growing number of community banks are backing out of the government’s bailout, which they see as fraught with hidden strings and government interference.

About 20 banks so far that applied for or had been approved to receive about $1 billion combined in taxpayer money have reversed course in the past month and refused to take the money. That’s just a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars the government already has spent, but it shows that taxpayers aren’t the only ones anxious about the financial bailout.

So they needed this money to stay in business, as the TARP was supposed to be used for, but they decided they didn’t want the money since it wasn’t just given to them. Sounds like these banks didn’t really need the money, but rather wanted it. In other words, the greed that got us into this huge mess is just being amplified with the TARP. Perhaps the feds should go in and check the ledgers of these banks to make sure they really aren’t getting ready to fail.