A recent post at The Atlantic questioned whether the Treasury as been adequately transparent. We would like to set the record straight.
The Treasury Department has made a significant effort to ensure that taxpayers are well-informed about the work we conduct on their behalf here at our agency. We provide thousands of documents to the public every year through our Office of Public Affairs, as well as under the Freedom of Information Act.
We proactively publish hundreds of reports on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) alone, including an exhaustive compendium of every single TARP transaction involving the use of taxpayer dollars. We also regularly post information regarding our borrowing plans; the performance of our foreclosure prevention program Marking Home Affordable; the speeches and activities of top agency officials; our holdings of international currency; foreign holdings of Treasury debt; Secretary Geithner's calendar, and numerous other issues.
Transparency, however, is also about striking a balance. The public has a critical right to know about the operations of its government. But we also need to ensure that federal agencies and their private partners can continue to freely and candidly work together in the public interest. That's not always an easy balance to strike, particularly at Treasury, where our words and actions can have a dramatic impact on global financial markets. But we do our sincere best to achieve it.