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The watchdog agency overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) said Friday that the Treasury Department paid banks $78 billion more for assets than they were worth.

The Congressional Oversight Panel said the Treasury dispersed $254 billion for capital purchases of bank assets worth about $176 billion under the TARP program.

“The loss estimate is conservative,” said House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Alan Grayson, (F-Fla.). “It could turn out that those assets in the end are worthless.”

The $700 billion TARP program has been under scrutiny since it began in October because of a general lack of understanding of how the program is being run and where the money is going.

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The U.S. Treasury Department has done nothing to make sure $700 billion in taxpayer-provided bailout money is used to buttress the weak U.S. mortgage market, which was the catalyst for the growing global financial crisis, congressional watchdog Elizabeth Warren said Friday.

Warren, who heads a congressionally appointed oversight panel, told ABC News there was no evidence the Treasury had used money from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to put a floor under the falling U.S. housing market by avoiding preventable foreclosures. “There’s just no money that’s gone in that direction,” Warren said. “This one’s not even arguable. The TARP funds themselves have not been used in this way despite congressional statutes requiring them to do so.”

The government has spent the first half ($350 billion) of the bailout money. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. “Hank” Paulson Jr. set aside the second half to be