President Obama wants to slap a cumbrous new tax on American banks
National Review
February 8, 2010
President Obama wants to slap a cumbrous new tax on American banks. “We want our money back,” he says. The government is expected to lose money on the bailouts–but not the money used to backstop the banks, which are paying it back, with interest. The real losses are expected to come from insurer AIG and from such untouchable Democratic holies as Fannie Mae, the heavily unionized automakers, and the foreclosure-prevention program.
Obama’s tax hike would harrow the prudent and imprudent alike, extracting billions of dollars from banks that never took bailout money in the first place. Anew tax on banks is a new tax on Americans’ savings and checking accounts. How big? It would have cost JPMorgan’s customers and shareholders $1.5 billion had it been in effect last year, another $1.5 billion for Bank of America, another $1 billion for Morgan Stanley, and would have punished many smaller banks to the tune of billions more. The Democrats are having trouble running against Republicans at the moment, so Obama seeks to run instead against Wall Street–and against the bailouts he voted for as a senator and expanded as president.