"$350 billion that Bush gave out to the banks and financial institutions"

TARP:

The first $350 billion TARP money was primarily used to buy preferred stock, which is similar to debt in that it gets paid before common equity shareholders....
....The original plan that Secretary Paulson presented was for the government to buy up the troubled (toxic) assets in insolvent banks and then sell them at auction to private investor and/or companies. This plan was scratched when Paulson met with England's Prime Minister Gordon Brown who came to the White House for an international summit on the global credit crisis. Prime Minister Brown, in an attempt to mitigate the credit squeeze in England, merely infused capital into banks via preferred stock in order to clean up their balance sheets and, in some economists' view, effectively nationalizing many banks. This plan seemed attractive to Secretary Paulson in that it was relatively easier and seemingly boosted lending more quickly....