They actually turned out to be a money maker for the federal government. From the Wall Street Journal:
The Treasury Department on Friday said the money repaid to taxpayers for government funds used to bail out U.S. companies has for the first time surpassed the amount of loans. The Treasury, in its May report to Congress on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said TARP repayments reached $194 billion, $4 billion more than the outstanding debt of $190 billion.
Indeed, the program generated at least $23 billion in revenue for taxpayers. For our conservative friends who do not understand math, that means two things 1) all the taxpayer money spent to bailout the banks repaid, and 2) based on the interest we were charging them, and the sale price of the stocks we took in each bank, we are making a profit (or a surplus) of at least $23 billion.
How do you like them apples?
UPDATE And I am a liberal who does not understand math, as I initially read the WSJ article to mean that the bailouts had been fully repaid. So I edited the title and the bold words above. My apologies.