The cat is out of the bag on the worst-kept secret on Wall Street as US President Barack Obama announced his proposal calling for the imposition of a tax on America’s fifty largest banks. The Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee is intended to recover taxpayer money provided to the nation’s largest banks and if approved by Congress, is expected to be in place by the end of June.
Full details will not be available until the next budget update for Congress due in February, but the goal of the “fee” is simple; to collect nearly $100 billion over the next ten years from those financial firms with assets exceeding $50 billion.
US President Barack Obama
“My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed,” Obama’s statement noted. “My determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people”.
As I noted in this morning’s commentary, the blatant “in your face” manner in which bank executives announced their bonuses, and the stunningly-callus manner in which they defended their position even as unemployment continues to rise, forced Obama to take action.
