For months, Sen. John Thune has been calling for an early end to the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, saying Democrats would use it as a “slush fund.”

Thune said his fears are coming to pass.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner used his authority under the original TARP bill last week to extend the program into next year. It was originally set to expire at the end of 2009.

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Geithner defended the program as necessary to preserve a still-shaky economy.

“We still need to keep in reserve some ability to respond” to future crises, Geithner said.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, suggested using some of the money left over in the $700 billion bailout program for small business loans and job creation programs.

“Today, TARP has served its original purpose and at much lower cost than we expected,” Obama said in a speech. “The assistance to banks, once thought to cost taxpayers untold billions, is on track to actually reap billions in profits for the taxpaying public. So this gives us a chance to pay down the deficit faster than we thought possible and to shift funds that would have gone to help the banks on Wall Street to help create jobs on Main Street.”

All that strikes Thune as dangerous.

“We did this because the country’s credit markets were in crisis,” Thune said. “The crisis has been averted. The remaining funds shouldn’t be spent and the money should be returned to taxpayers.”

Thune said he’s open to a jobs bill but said the money should come out of unspent parts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly known as the stimulus package.

“We’ve got all this money in the stimulus bill,” Thune said. “(Republicans) have all argued that the stimulus money should have been more directed at small businesses.”

At least $200 billion is available in TARP funds, including money that was not spent and repaid loans to banks and insurance companies.

The national economy has grown the last two quarters, exceeding economists’ predictions. But unemployment remains high, at 10 percent nationally and 4.5 percent in South Dakota.

Thune introduced a bill months ago to end the TARP program this year, but it hasn’t gotten a vote on the bill in the Senate. A similar motion was voted down Friday in the House of Representatives 232-190.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted against the Republican motion to end the TARP program.