Two new independent reports peg available resources in the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program at just over $100 billion -- with one report saying the Treasury still has more than $370 billion in unspent TARP cash on hand.

The amount is important: Analysts and lawmakers are questioning whether the government will have enough TARP funding to finish stabilizing the financial system -- especially after results from the government’s bank “stress tests” are released later this month; the results may require the Treasury to invest more capital in banks. Treasury also may need to spend more for auto makers, life insurance companies and other industries that comes knocking on its door for help.

“I don't think you can tell if it's enough to finish the job because they don't think we know how big the job is,” said Karen Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a research firm in Washington, D.C. “The [government] stress tests for the top 20 banks are still incomplete and then once we get those results, we still aren't sure what Treasury’s going to do with them.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said two weeks ago that there was "roughly $135 billion" in remaining TARP resources. 

But the two new reports -- one from the Financial Services Roundtable and the other from the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel -- agree there is $109.5 billion in uncommitted TARP funds. Click here for the latest TARP panel report. 

Congress authorized $700 billion for TARP last fall. According to the FSR, Treasury has allocated $667.5 billion to announced TARP programs, has committed to spending about $590 billion so far under those programs and has actually disbursed -- cut checks for -- about $329 billion. The largest TARP programs are its bank capital investment program ($250 billion allocated, though applications recently ended at requests for $218 billion) and its new program to purchase toxic assets in the financial system in partnership with private investors ($100 billion allocated). 

Flipping the FSR numbers to see what is left of the original $700 billion in TARP authority, FSR says there is $32.5 billion in unallocated authority, $109.5 billion left uncommitted to specific spending and about $371 billion in undisbursed TARP cash.

Treasury makes one assumption in estimating remaining TARP resources that the FSR and oversight panel do not: The department expects some banks that received TARP investments will pay back $25 billion soon -- a “conservative estimate,” a Treasury spokesperson says. Goldman Sachs (GS), for one, has said it plans to repay its $10 billion in TARP funding by the end of the year. Assuming the $25 billion in funds are repaid, unallocated TARP resources would total $134.5 billion, the approximate figure cited by Geithner.

“It gives us -- and this is very important -- substantial resources to move ahead with this broad-based suite of initiatives to help get the financial system back in the business of providing credit,” Geithner said in an interview March 29 on ABC’s “This Week.”

But that outlook is not certain. Whether the unallocated TARP money is $109.5 billion or $134.5 billion, most of whatever remains is committed to existing TARP programs. Meantime, auto companies are seeking another $22 billion in TARP loans; life insurance companies have applied for $20 billion in TARP capital, sources say, and there are other potential applicants for TARP funding.

“Mortgage insurance companies are critical to home ownership -- we won't see new borrowers in a mortgage market pickup until something is done for the mortgage insurers,” Petrou said. And “municipalities need help.”

The Administration proposed a $750 billion placeholder in its budget for an additional TARP funding request to Congress at some point, if needed. But because of voter anger over bank bailouts, Petrou and others doubt Congress will approve any new TARP funding anytime soon -- if at all.

“Getting Congress to approve yet more money in this program is impossible,” Petrou said. Treasury “is either going to have to come up with Plan B, which would be another program that will recognize these political obstacles, or they're going to have to figure out way, I hope, through [government] guarantees and maybe some other innovative structures to make the [existing] $700 billion work as hard as it can.”

In its analysis, the FSR also said banks that received TARP investments have paid the Treasury $1.7 billion in dividends through March 31.