As the government's authority in the banking industry continues to grow, the hottest debate is over how banks are spending federal funds.
But even more fundamental is the issue of which banks will receive Uncle Sam's money.
More than 400 banks in 47 states have received government capital from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, and the U.S. Treasury continues to announce more TARP recipients. The deadline to apply for the money has expired, but regulators are still working through “thousands” of applications from every state.
It's not clear how many additional banks will receive TARP money. When the government announced the program in October, it said only that it would process applications "as expeditiously as possible."
See the interactive map on CharlotteObserver.com