President-elect Barack Obama's top economic advisor sent a letter to the Senate's Democratic leader Thursday promising to spend between $50 billion and $100 billion of the remaining $350 billion of the financial rescue fund to reduce the number of home foreclosures. The letter came before the Senate was scheduled to vote Thursday on Obama's request to release the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money that Congress approved in October. Larry Summers also told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that Obama has “no intention of using any funds to implement an industrial policy,” addressing Republican concerns about using the money to help industries outside the financial sector, as President George W. Bush did with troubled U.S. automakers. The letter came after a report earlier Thursday said that more than 2.3 million U.S. homeowners faced foreclosure proceedings in 2008, an 81 percent increase from the previous year, with the worst yet to come as consumers deal with layoffs, shrinking investment and retirement plans, and falling home prices.
