Obama Asks For Remaining Bailout Funds in Letter

President-elect Obama told Congressional leaders that he needs the remaining $350 billion in financial bailout funds to help get credit flowing.

In a letter to the top Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, Obama’s economic adviser Lawrence Summers said that the need for the remaining bailout funds is “imminent and urgent.”

“It is important that we act both quickly and wisely,” Summers wrote. “The President-elect is committed to using the full arsenal of tools available to us to get credit flowing again to families and businesses.”

The Treasury Department under President Bush has already spent nearly all of the first $350 billion that Congress approved last September.

Summers wrote that the Obama administration would use the remaining money to directly address home foreclosures and to aid families and small businesses. And in a thinly veiled jab at the Bush administration, Summers said that Obama is committed to a “full and accurate accounting” of how the rest of the funds will be used.

Democrats have blasted the Treasury Department and recipients of bailout funds for divulging few details of how the first $350 billion has been used.

Download Summers’s letter here.