"Straight Talker" Spence's TARP Story Continues to Evolve

Last week, new GOP gubernatorial candidate Dave Spence told the Associated Press he didn't "recall any details about" the decision of Reliance Bancshares' board, on which he served, to not repay TARP funds:

In February, the company announced it would stop making the $2.2 million annual dividend it was supposed to pay to the U.S. Treasury on the $42 million it received under the Troubled Asset Relief program. Spence said he doesn't recall any details about that decision, but he said the federal bank bailout program helped avoid a potential economic disaster by providing banks with "extra cushion of capital."

He changed his tune in a major way in an interview with PoliticMo earlier this week -- “I resigned from the bank board over this issue,” he decided. And in a longer conversation with the Beacon, Spence has now decide that TARP was a bad idea to begin with. "I don't support it and I wish it had never had to be used," he tells Jo Mannies. 

Spence added that he isn't a fan of such federal help, but believes it likely was necessary during those dark financial months of 2008 and early 2009.

"In a perfect world,'' he said, "I'm not in favor of government assistance at all."

But in late 2008 and early 2009, Spence continued, "we suffered a 100-year crisis in the banking industry'' and something had to be done to avoid an economic catastrophy.

"I don't support it and I wish it had never had to be used," he said. "In a perfect world, TARP would never have been invented, or used."

So TARP was:

• crucial because it helped "avoid a potential economic disaster" by giving banks like Spence's had an "extra cushion of capital," but
• should "never have been invented, or used," and Spence doesn't "support it" at all.

Also: Spence fancies himself "a straight talker" in the mold of NJ Governor Chris Christie.