Handing over 700 billion dollars of taxpayer money to Wall Street bankers who caused the global economic crisis was never going to be popular.
And so it proved for the much maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which will begin its slow wind-down on Sunday.
Two years to the day after it was enacted, the always controversial bailout has a mixed legacy of financial success and political derision.
As far as costs go, TARP has been an unmitigated success story.
The program -- introduced to prop up rapidly failing financial markets -- is now projected to cost the government less than 50 billion dollars, a bargain considering the economic growth that could have been lost.
Pending a decent sale of the government's stakes in Citigroup, AIG and General Motors, the US taxpayer may realistically make a gross profit.
It was not always so. In the early days of the massive program even government-appointed TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky said the program would "almost certainly" result in a loss for the taxpayer.
Despite the reduced price tag, TARP's political legacy has been as toxic as the dodgy mortgage investments that made it necessary.
Most of the 74 Senators, and 263 House representatives who eventually voted for the bill have spent the last two years distancing themselves from it.
Republicans have also spent 24 months trying to tie it to President Barack Obama's administration and Democrats have tried to remind voters it was actually signed by his predecessor George W. Bush.
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