In this winter of Washington’s discontent, there may be no more acute symbol of the public’s anger at its economic circumstances — and no more obvious target of lawmakers’ indulgence in that unhappiness — than the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Variously regarded as a boondoggle, giveaway and slush fund for the Treasury secretary to use to reward failed corporate execs, TARP has many enemies and very few friends. No matter that the financial crisis TARP was designed to avert has considerably abated in the 14 months since it was created; you won’t find many defenders of the $700 billion bailout on Capitol Hill. The financial rescue is itself as toxic as the failed assets it was originally designed to take off banks’ books, if not more so.

Over the next few weeks, the seething political anger over TARP that has been evident for some time is likely to erupt into a firestorm. That’s because Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner will almost certainly exercise his option to allow the program to stay in business until October 2010 — and keep hundreds of billions of dollars in uncommitted TARP money available for his use.

It’s already clear that many lawmakers — Republicans, for sure, but maybe some Democrats — will protest loudly if Geithner takes this step. First, they’ll argue that TARP is no longer necessary (if it ever was). And, second, they’ll say terminating TARP is a worthy act to put money back in the pockets of taxpayers.

Unfortunately for the advocates of these arguments, neither holds up in a fiscal policy sense, whatever merit there might be to enact limits on future uses of TARP money. And if this turns into a fight in Congress, the reasons will have more to do with electoral politics than economics.

It pays to recall that TARP was enacted in the face of strenuous opposition, and that it was rejected the first time it came to a vote on the House floor. Though the program was vigorously sought by a Republican president and his Republican Treasury secretary, who said without it the global financial market faced imminent collapse, a majority of House Republicans voted against its passage, as did a sizable minority of House Democrats.

As enacted, all authority under the program was supposed to terminate this coming Dec. 31. But, in case the economy hadn’t yet recovered, the Treasury secretary was given blanket authority to extend it for an additional nine months. Despite some evidence that lending has picked up, houses are beginning to sell in some markets and some macroeconomic indicators are no longer pointing south, the economy hasn’t started to grow at a pace that will bring down the highest jobless rate in a generation.

Moreover, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, many economists continue to fret that the economy might be headed for a second cliff if consumer spending stalls and the commercial real estate market collapses. If Geithner does extend TARP’s term — and he has merely said he wants to terminate the program “as soon as we can” — he will no doubt defend the move as a prudent step, just in case. In Washington, as elsewhere in America, it’s often easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.

No Cash to Take Back

It’s the second argument — the one that says terminating TARP will somehow help the government repay its debt — that really fails to pass muster.

Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota is one who tries to make this case. “I can’t think of anything more important right now than trying to pay down the federal debt,” Thune said a month ago as he pressed unsuccessfully for a vote to terminate TARP. “We do that by taking those unexpended balances and the unobligated balances in the TARP fund and put those toward the federal debt.”

His may have been a publicly popular proposal, but the way the government accounts for TARP money made it a specious idea. Without going deeply into government credit accounting principles, suffice it to say that the TARP fund isn’t a wad of cash stuffed in Geithner’s office sofa. If the program terminates, there are no “unexpended balances” to give back. Basically, anything the Treasury hasn’t spent, or otherwise obligated, has never been borrowed in the first place.