Obama chides banks over fee

• You won’t take money and run, he says about recent bailouts

WASHINGTON, Saturday

President Barack Obama has slammed Wall Street’s “audacity” for fighting a bailout fee he wants to slap on financial firms and said his Republican opponents had sided with big banks.

With Obama’s popularity hovering around 50 per cent and congressional elections in November, the White House wants to cast itself alongside ordinary Americans while branding Republicans as the party for the rich.

“Like clockwork, the banks and politicians who curry their favour are already trying to stop this fee from going into effect,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Pass law

“We’re not going to let Wall Street take the money and run. We’re going to pass this fee into law,” Obama vowed after proposing a levy to raise up to $117 billion over the next 10 years to recoup projected losses on a taxpayer bank bailout.

A number of the banks have already repaid capital they received under the $700 billion bailout, called the Troubled Asset Relief Programme, which was conceived in 2008 by Obama’s predecessor, Republican George W Bush.

They complain they are being penalized unfairly for losses mainly run up by US automakers and insurer American International Group, which was rescued in September 2008. Some Republicans warned the fee would be dumped on customers.

“President Obama’s plans to institute a ‘financial crisis responsibility fee’ to recoup the bailout funds from major banks is nothing more than another tax on the American public,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. (Reuters)