TARP repayment plans: Too late now to change public sentiment?

As TARP nears it's end on Dec. 31, discussions about extending it -- or killing it -- are flooding the halls of Congress and the White House. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner can ask to extend TARP until October 2010, but he'll do so with a lot of objection from members of Congress. In fact Republicans are so disappointed in Geithner's performance that they're calling for his resignation. Now, the Federal Reserve is asking the big banks that were part of the stress tests to submit plans for repaying TARP, according to a report from Bloomberg.

These banks include: Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), GMAC, KeyCorp (KEY), PNC Financial Services (PNC), Regions Financial Corp. (RF), SunTrust Banks (STI) and Wells Fargo (WFC). All either declined to comment to Bloomberg or didn't call back. These nine banks received about $142 billion of the $700 billion bailout.