Your tax dollars are going for . . . what?

By Michael Brush

So far, the Treasury Department has injected more than $250 billion into the U.S. financial sector.

But precious little has come back out in the form of loans that were supposed to help get the economy going again.

In the meantime, banks have been anything but shy about using billions of dollars for other purposes, many of which seem to have little to do with getting the U.S. economy rolling. Top bailout recipients have spent billions on everything from purchases of foreign companies to extravagant spa retreats and from exorbitant golden parachutes and executive pay packages to CEO use of corporate jets for private trips.

None of this should come as a surprise. The Government Accountability Office this month reported that the Bush administration had failed to prevent shenanigans or even adequately monitor what's going on.

So we did a little monitoring ourselves, with the help of BailoutSleuth.com and other Web sites. Here's what we found.