According to Nason, the program must be both temporary and short-term, private-sector retentions must be increased before coverage can be triggered and the program should not be expanded. He did not, however, call for the program to expire year-end during his appearance before the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises. He indicated that the administration might accept a two- or three-year extension under some circumstances.
Extending the program without meeting the administration’s three objectives “would be moving in the wrong direction,” Nason told the panel. He took an even stronger position, one noted by Democratic members of the panel, in written testimony, saying, “In Treasury’s view, from both a market and economic perspective, it would be better to have no TRIA than a bad TRIA.”