U.S. bailout repayment seen bigger than expected

The Obama administration is expected to announce next week that a higher-than-expected number of large financial institutions will be allowed to repay their government bailout funds, the Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition.

Citing unnamed sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official announcement has not been made yet, the newspaper report said the size of the repayments may be twice the initial estimate of $25 billion.

That could mean that nearly all of the nine institutions found to have sufficient reserves in a recent government-run “stress test” might be allowed to return the money under the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

So- we won’t be broke anymore? How quickly will Washington spend this return?