Secrecy re Bailout expenditures

When the Treasury Department's bailout czar provided an update this week on the government's $700 billion plan to rescue troubled financial institutions, he vowed that it would be an "open and transparent program with appropriate oversight.''

The next day, the Treasury Department put out an announcement about a major bailout-related contract with Bank of New York Mellon Corp. that fell short in the transparency department.

The copy of the agreement that was made public had blacked-out paragraphs in the section covering Bank of New York Mellon's compensation. If the Treasury Department is unwilling to disclose the particulars of that contract -- or even the general outline of the compensation scheme -- that raises questions about how it will treat disclosure of other bailout transactions.

Image and text credit here. Can any TYWKIWDBI visitor offer an explanation of why such data should be withheld? There may be one; I just can't think of it. It's our taxpayer money, and we have a right to know how it's being distributed. This isn't a bidding process where the amounts need to be shielded for competitive reasons.