TORN TARP: TAXPAYERS ABOUT TO LOSE $2.3 BILLION FROM FAILED BAILOUT

Washington Post - A year ago, the financial system was tottering and government officials arranged a $2.3 billion emergency cash infusion into CIT Group, a troubled lender to small businesses.

Today, CIT is in bankruptcy court, and the taxpayers' investment is on the brink of being wiped out. It would be the largest loss so far from the government's massive rescue of the financial system, but it isn't likely to be the last.

Officials poured about $700 billion into investments in scores of companies, from giants such as the automaker General Motors and the insurer American International Group to smaller regional banks. Of them, 46 had missed required dividend payments to the government as of the end of September, according to the inspector general overseeing the program. . .

Analysts expect more bailed-out firms to fail in the months ahead. Others may survive but will struggle to repay the government. Steven Rattner, the former head of the government's efforts to bail out the auto industry, said recently that the full public investment in GM is unlikely to be repaid. Meanwhile, AIG is dismantling itself, selling healthy subsidiaries at what critics say are bargain prices in an all-out effort to get cash to repay the government.