Obama to announce TARP fee on banks on Thursday

[TomCADem]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will announce plans on Thursday to raise up to $120 billion from major U.S. financial firms to cover expected losses from a taxpayer-funded bank bailout, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.

Obama's announcement will come as U.S. unemployment is stuck in double digits and public anger is growing over big bonuses that some financial firms are poised to resume paying, barely a year after the height of the global financial crisis that made the bailout necessary.

The Obama administration official said the amount of money raised from the fees would not exceed $120 billion since this was the higher end of conservative estimates of the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

U.S. Treasury officials expect TARP losses to be much lower than that sum, and over the course of years the fee will pay back any costs of the $700 billion taxpayer bailout, the administration official said.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60C0M820100113?type=politicsNews

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Republicans will, of course, get a free pass for opposing such fees while some liberals will probably criticize any attempt to tax big finance on the ground that taxing corporations and the rich will get passed on to the middle class in a progressive version of trickle down economic theory that opposes taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Won't Happen. Anyone Wanna Bet $10 On It?

Remember a couple of weeks ago how Glass-Steagall was about to be re-instated?

[clear eye]

2. "Liberals" won't say anything like what you speculate they will.

Why would they? Liberals are for progressive taxation and those upper income groups and big finance are comparatively undertaxed. "progressive...opposes taxes on corporations and the wealthy"? Bizarre.

Do you have an inkling of liberal/progressive political views or do you just project irrational negativism onto them b/c you feel they're "disloyal" and see them as the opposition/enemy? Sorry, not everyone reacts as you do w/ unprincipled "you're either for us or against us" knee-jerkism. Anything progressive the President does will be hailed w/ enthusiasm by "liberals". In fact, it's likely to be met w/ gushing gratitude, since "liberals" are for the most part heartbroken by the defection of the Democratic Party from its traditional ideals. Unfortunately, we've learned we have to wait for the action after the speech before we can celebrate. Progressive-sounding pronouncements have not usually been followed through on, lately.

Get a clue.

[PSPS]

3. Obama providing political cover for his bankster buddies' bonuses.

The bonus debacle has been getting too much air time in the media, so they hope this will provide a conveniently distracting counterbalance. Besides, even if this were to actually happen (it won't,) it's a pretty good deal for the banksters. They "pay" $120 billion in "fees" in exchange for a $14 trillion taxpayer backstop. That's over 11,000% return the crooks will make on the "fee." Not a bad deal, eh?

[JCMach1]

4. Why not make the fee the percentage they pay as their TOP BONUS!

How about that for a MODEST proposal?

[Igel]

5. Didn't a chunk of TARP funding go to GM?

And isn't that a reasonable chunk of the money that's not going to be paid back?

Oh, wait. The government owns a large chunk of GM. And, well, it's politically risky to threaten it. So we tax the financial institutions to pay for GM.

It gets so confusing.

[SergeStorms]

6. Do they think for one minute.........

that any or all of those "fees" wouldn't be passed on to those firms' customers? These companies ARE NOT going to absorb those losses, they're going to pass them on to their customers. So what this will amount to is another backhanded tax for the consumer. :banghead: