VIDEO: No restrictions for companies partnering with gov’t in troubled asset plan

Companies engaging in the Treasury Department’s “Public Private Partnership Investment Program” (PPPIP) will not face restrictions on operations and compensation like those receiving assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a White House official said Monday.

Austan Goolsbee, chief economist for the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said that there will not be restrictions like those imposed on bailed-out banks, and left the door open that President Obama would fight a Democratic Congress if it tries to impose such conditions.

“You should not expect the kinds of restrictions we have on companies that floundered and are only in existence because the government bailed them out,” Goolsbee said during an appearance on CNBC Monday morning. “I will promise you that the president always pushes back if he believes the Congress is doing something unproductive.”

Goolsbee said that the administration’s goal was to open the program as broadly as possible in order to draw applications from many financial institutions to partner with the government in buying up firms’ toxic assets.

“I would say the most important part of this plan is to remember that it’s one key brick in what’s been a multiple-brick process trying to put the house back together,” Goolsbee said. “We’re doing this thing jointly, so the government isn’t going to massively overpay, and we’ve both got skin in the game.”

Watch a video of the interview below: