Taxpayers Bailout Net Cost Jumps by $167 bln

U.S. congressional budget analysts have raised their estimate of the net cost to taxpayers for the government’s financial rescue program to $356 billion, an increase of $167 billion from earlier estimates.

The Congressional Budget Office had originally projected the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] would cost taxpayers $189 billion. [via Reuters]

CBO’s larger estimate reflects, among other things, the Treasury’s move to use the TARP to help avoid foreclosures, as well as the changing details of its aid to AIG, and the deterioration of financial conditions and of banks in which the Treasury has invested TARP money.