It’s something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan:
Where’s the money going?
    But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s
largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or
they simply refuse to discuss it.
    “We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any
accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for
JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have
not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”
    The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in
government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it
spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?
    None of the banks provided specific answers.
    “We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking,” said Barry Koling, a
spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in
taxpayer dollars.
    Some banks said they simply didn’t know where the money was going.
    “We manage our capital in its aggregate,” said Regions Financial Corp.
spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Ala.-based company is not
tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the
financial bailout.
    The answers highlight the secrecy surrounding the Troubled Assets Relief
Program, which earmarked $700 billion — about the size of the Netherlands’
economy — to help rescue the financial industry. The Treasury Department has
been using the money to buy stock in U.S. banks, hoping that the sudden inflow
of cash will get banks to start lending money.
    There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers
summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend
the money — not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy
other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that’s happening and
there are no consequences for banks who don’t comply.
    “It is entirely appropriate for the American people to know how their
taxpayer dollars are being spent in private industry,” said Elizabeth Warren,
the top congressional watchdog overseeing the financial bailout.
    But, at least for now, there’s no way for taxpayers to find that out.
    Pressured by the Bush administration to approve the money quickly, Congress
attached nearly no strings on the $700 billion bailout in October. And the
Treasury Department, which doles out the money, never asked banks how it would
be spent.
    “Those are legitimate questions that should have been asked on Day One,”
said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., a House Financial Services Committee member who
opposed the bailout as it was rushed through Congress. “Where is the money going
to go to? How is it going to be spent? When are we going to get a record on it?”
    Nearly every bank AP questioned — including Citibank and Bank of America,
two of the largest recipients of bailout money — responded with generic public
relations statements explaining that the money was being used to strengthen
balance sheets and continue making loans to ease the credit crisis.
    A few banks described company-specific programs, such as JPMorgan Chase’s
plan to lend $5 billion to nonprofit and health care companies next year.
Richard Becker, senior vice president of Wisconsin-based Marshall & Ilsley
Corp., said the $1.75 billion in bailout money allowed the bank to temporarily
stop foreclosing on homes.
    But no bank provided even the most basic accounting for the federal money.
    “We’re choosing not to disclose that,” said Kevin Heine, spokesman for Bank
of New York Mellon, which received about $3 billion.
    Others said the money couldn’t be tracked. Bob Denham, a spokesman for North
Carolina-based BB&T Corp., said the bailout money “doesn’t have its own bucket.”
But he said taxpayer money wasn’t used in the bank’s recent purchase of a
Florida insurance company. Asked how he could be sure, since the money wasn’t
being tracked, Denham said the bank would have made that deal regardless.
    Others, such as Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Carissa Ramirez, offered to
discuss the matter with reporters on condition of anonymity. When AP refused,
Ramirez sent an e-mail saying: “We are going to decline to comment on your
story.”
    Most banks wouldn’t say why they were keeping the details secret.
    “We’re not sharing any other details. We’re just not at this time,” said
Wendy Walker, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Comerica Inc., which received $2.25
billion from the government.
    Heine, the New York Mellon Corp. spokesman who said he wouldn’t share
spending specifics, added: “I just would prefer if you wouldn’t say that we’re
not going to discuss those details.”
    The banks which came closest to answering the questions were those, such as
U.S. Bancorp and Huntington Bancshares Inc., that only recently received the
money and have yet to spend it. But neither provided anything more than a
generic summary of how the money would be spent.
    Lawmakers say they want to tighten restrictions on the remaining,
yet-to-be-released $350 billion block of bailout money before more cash is
handed out. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the department is trying to
step up its monitoring of bank spending.
    “What we’ve been doing here is moving, I think, with lightning speed to put
necessary programs in place, to develop them, implement them, and then we need
to monitor them while we’re doing this,” Paulson said at a recent forum in New
York. “So we’re building this organization as we’re going.”
    Warren, the congressional watchdog appointed by Democrats, said her
oversight panel will try to force the banks to say where they’ve spent the
money.
    “It would take a lot of nerve not to give answers,” she said.
    But Warren said she’s surprised she even has to ask.
    “If the appropriate restrictions were put on the money to begin with, if the
appropriate transparency was in place, then we wouldn’t be in a position where
you’re trying to call every recipient and get the basic information that should
already be in public documents,” she said.
    Garrett, the New Jersey congressman, said the nation might never get a clear
answer on where hundreds of billions of dollars went.
    “A year or two ago, when we talked about spending $100 million for a bridge
to nowhere, that was considered a scandal,” he said.
   
    Associated Press writers Stevenson Jacobs in New York and Christopher S.
Rugaber and Daniel Wagner in Washington contributed to this report.