Accountability and transparency breed better government and boost taxpayer confidence. And one of the murkiest areas for taxpayers is the bailout of the financial sector. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), when all financial rescue programs are combined, including the Federal Reserve and TARP efforts, U.S. taxpayers could be on the hook for up to $23.7 trillion.

Recently, the U.S. District Court ruled to release the names of the companies the Federal Reserve chose to rescue. This gets us one step toward greater disclosure and transparency in how the Fed deals with the ongoing bailout. The Fed should be held accountable for disclosing why and how they helped these institutions.

The American taxpayers have every right to know which banks received the trillions of dollars in aid. For instance, Citigroup received over $300 billion in loan guarantees – even as it received $45 billion in TARP funding. Why Citi? And what other banks have received these sweetheart deals? For all of the sunny news around the government making a few billion dollars in dividends off of the TARP recipients (which is good news), there is little known about how, when or even if the taxpayers will be made whole when the Fed rescue efforts are considered.

In testimony before the Joint Economic Committee last March, U.S. PIRG implored Congress to not only increase transparency within the TARP programs, but also to extend U.S. PIRG’s proposed reporting requirements to the Fed.

The Campaign to Shed Light on the Fed

U.S. PIRG, in conjunction with a diverse coalition of taxpayer, citizen and government watchdog groups, will continue to push for legislation to increase transparency within the Fed. To date, over 280 members of the House of Representatives support H.R. 1207 which calls for an audit of the trillions of taxpayer-backed dollars invested in big banks. In addition, research shows that 75% of Americans support auditing the Fed.

According to House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, as Congress considers reforms to the financial system and regulatory bodies this Fall, it will take on the issue of auditing the Federal Reserve.  Stay tuned!