TARP expected to cost U.S. only $25 billion, CBO says

The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which was widely reviled as a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street titans, is now expected to cost the federal government a mere $25 billion - the equivalent of less than six months of emergency jobless benefits.

A new report released Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the cost of TARP has plummeted since its passage in October 2008, when policymakers thought that the world stood on the brink of an economic meltdown.

'Clearly, it was not apparent when the TARP was created two years ago that the cost would turn out to be this low,' the CBO report says. 'The transactions envisioned and ultimately undertaken through the TARP engendered substantial financial risk for the federal government.'

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TARP expected to cost U.S. only $25 billion, CBO says