In their May report, members of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) check up on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's progress in directing TARP funds toward opening credit for small businesses.  So far, they do not see a lot of improvement.  From the report:

Unfortunately, small business credit remains severely constricted. Data from the Federal Reserve shows that lending plummeted during the 2008 financial crisis and remained sharply restricted throughout 2009. Although Wall Street banks had been increasing their share of small business lending over the last decade, between 2008 and 2009 their small business loan portfolios fell by 9.0 percent, more than double the 4.1 percent decline in their entire lending portfolios. Some borrowers looked to community banks to pick up the slack, but smaller banks remain strained by their exposure to commercial real estate and other liabilities. Unable to find credit, many small businesses have had to shut their doors, and some of the survivors are still struggling to find adequate financing. 

Treasury has launched several TARP initiatives aimed at restoring health to the financial system, but it is not clear that these programs have had a noticeable effect on small business credit availability. The largest TARP program, the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), provided hundreds of billions of dollars in new capital to banks, but Treasury did not require recipients to use the money to improve credit access. In fact, after receiving the money, most recipients decreased their lending. The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility helped to restore liquidity to the securitized lending market, but because relatively few small business loans are securitized, the program had little impact on small business lending. Although the Public-Private Investment Partnership program remains in its early stages, it has not targeted and will likely not target the smaller financial institutions that often serve small businesses.

Here is COP chair Elizabeth Warren discussing the key findings of the May report:

For the full report, click here.