WASHINGTON - The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized - and that bank failures were so infrequent - that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.
Wow, Congress looks pretty dumb now, eh? I mean, what kind of a moron would stop funding bank depositors' only insurance body on the assumption that the economy will never tank again?
Well, let's think about it: who ran Congress from 1996 to 2006?
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