Among the banks returning TARP funds to the federal government
this week was
BB&T
, which considering the libertarian convictions of
recently departed president John Allison, surprisingly accepted bailout money even though
BB&T did not need it. In a December interview with The Charlotte Observer Allison explained why he took the funds:

ALLISON: We took it for two reasons. One, there was a lot
of regulatory pressure on the large banks to take TARP
(Troubled Assets Relief Program). They very strongly — very
strongly — encouraged banks our size to participate. And, if
you allowed your competitors to get it and you didn’t, it would
hurt you relative to your competitors, so you had an obligation
to your shareholders to take it. … It would be like the
original [economic stimulus] program, where they gave everybody
up to, I think, $600. Well, you could have been opposed to
that, but if they were giving everybody else $600, why wouldn’t
you take yours?

However, we still would have rather there not been a
program. The net effect has been negative to us. A lot of banks
have been helped that otherwise we would have been able to
acquire. [The government was] supposed to give the money to
very healthy banks, but they’re also giving it to banks that
are very marginal.

OBSERVER: What are you using your TARP money for?

ALLISON: Just for general purposes. We’re still growing our
lending business, [but] we already had enough capital. The
other thing is, the Treasury is encouraging banks to acquire
marginally healthy banks, and TARP money could be used for that
purpose. [But] we already had enough money to do
acquisitions.

Now upon repayment, it appears BB&T regrets it accepted TARP
money:

Seven months after it accepted $3.1 billion from the
federal government, BB&T Corp. – a longtime opponent of big
government – repaid the money with interest Wednesday….

BB&T said it accepted TARP loans despite the bank’s
philosophy because regulators strongly urged it to. The bank
said Wednesday that it had paid $93 million in interest on the
government loan and indicated that it wasn’t happy about the
expense or the distraction.

“This was, in fact, an excellent investment for the
American taxpayer,” chief executive Kelly King said in a
statement – subtly refuting critics who called the TARP loans a
bailout.

Does the RICO Act apply to the federal government?

Cross-posted at American Spectator.