Heavy on the levy

14 January 2010 By James Pethokoukis

Congress, particularly the Senate, has been a graveyard for tough financial reform. And banks are hoping the new liability levy will suffer a similar fate. But they shouldn’t count on it. A clever design and a determined White House push mean Wall Street may have to pay up.

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President Barack Obama has proposed levying a "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee" to make big banks and other financial institutions repay the pool of taxpayer funds that helped bail them out during the financial crisis.

"My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed," Obama said in his prepared remarks. "And 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 who have not been made whole, and who continue to face real hardship in this recession."

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