Oversight panel: Feds jumped too soon to bail out AIG

By Chris Adams | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The federal government didn't exhaust all its options before it committed tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars to bail out the American International Group during the height of the 2008 financial collapse, according to a new report from a congressional watchdog panel.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, which was created to monitor the spending in the 2008 bank bailout bill known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, detailed in its latest monthly report the government's extraordinary rescue of AIG and its lingering effects on taxpayers and the financial markets.