Indeed, the consensual nature of the EU itself has meant that EU-level institutions are far weaker than certain federal institutions in the United States. These weaknesses were made painfully evident in the European debt crisis of 2010-2013. The United States Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Congress responded quite forcefully to its financial crisis, with a massive expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, the $700 billion TARP, a second $700 billion stimulus package in 2009, and continuing asset purchases by the Fed under successive versions of quantitative easing. Under emergency circumstances, the executive branch was able to browbeat the Congress into supporting its initiatives. The European Union, by contrast, has taken a much more hesitant and piecemeal approach to the euro crisis. Lacking a monetary authority with the same powers as the Federal Reserve, and with fiscal policy remaining the preserve of national-level governments, European policy makers have had fewer tools than their American counterparts to deal with economic shocks.