Reid Names Elizabeth Warren to TARP Board

According to Politico, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has named Harvard Law prof Elizabeth Warren to the oversight board of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). This is the program that was established by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, aka The Bailout, and regular readers of the D&S blog know that it is sorely in need of oversight.

Warren is a great (and surprising) pick. She’s a bankruptcy expert, and has been outspoken on the issue of the “middle-class squeeze.” Back in March, we posted a video of her appearance on the University of California TV’s public affairs program “Conversations with History.”

Politico also reports that Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi jointly appointed Damon Silvers, AFL-CIO Associate General Counsel, to the TARP board. This is a nice contrast to the utter lack of labor folks among the economic advisers pictured behind President-Elect Obama in news reports last week.

Hat-tip to Michael Pollak on lbo-talk.