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Then i'm going to tax. a that part that will linger right now, long after the tarp t.a.r.p. gone is the fact of the guarantee. it's the fact that 18 months ago when we faced the abyss, the secretary of the treasury rushed in and said, here's $700 billion to back you up. no matter what, not under any circumstances will we let a large financial institution fail. those financial institutions now operate with that guarantee. they don't pay anything for it, they operate with that guarantee. >> and more offensive to most americans, those banks that were too big to fail 18 months ago are even bigger ...

A t.a.r.p. what's the payback right now? what banks have paid back? who still owes? tell americans what the balance sheets look like. we gave, what, $700 billion? >> $700 billion was allocated. we ultimately spent about -- roughly about $600 billion of it. we've gotten about $450 billion of it back again. >> which bank -- who's paid back? >> oh, come on. i can't do this. >> aig has not. >> most of the big ones. we're going to do a hearing today on gmac. gmac certainly has not paid back. okay? we still are big shareholders i lost cause. >> well, they're still working to see if we can get some p...

And all that. so you've got a complete gridlock in government. and you're running deficits at 10%, 11% of gdp. we're headed for athens. >> what you're talking about, though, is you're talking about the government end of it. watch. it's both halves. it's norah's point. it's also what happens now on the private end. what the government is doing right now is it's permitting a set of rules that says, in effect, hey, banks, we will lend to you at zero and you go out there and figure out what you can squeeze out of every american family, no new rules. >> how do you get a bank into lending when they ...

District set prices they can go to jail. but when the biggest health insurance companies in the country do it, it's okay. simpbs 1945 rks it was an early ben nelson compromise, it was supposed to be a three-year exemption, but they got rid of the phase-out. and ever since then, the industry has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lore bying to protect their monopoly. >> is there a justification to allow price-fixing in health care insurance companies? >> since 1945. overwhelmingly a democratic congress did this. why would they do it? >> since 1945, you've had republican congresss,...