P.M. BRIEFING : Panelist Assails S&L; Efforts
The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee today assailed the Bush Administration’s efforts to bolster the nation’s crumbling savings and loan industry and to detect the fraud that has siphoned thrift assets.
Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) said the Administration’s agencies “are not applying enough resources” to detect and prosecute fraud in the thrift industry.
Riegle’s remarks came as he released a status report on the Administration’s thrift rescue effort, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act launched nine months ago.
Since then, Riegle said, weak thrifts are getting weaker, stronger institutions are making modest improvements and mid-level thrifts that “can go either way” are struggling to strengthen themselves.
Cleaning up the nation’s beleaguered thrift industry is estimated to cost taxpayers between $325 billion and $500 billion, or about $3,000 per person.
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