There Is Nothing Fair About Obama’s Wall Street Bailout Tax
Mike Brownfield /
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared in an interview on The Today Show this morning and decried the “unfairness” of an economy where businesses on Wall Street are recovering, but where Americans still don’t have jobs. Quoth Geithner: “It’s not fair, it’s deeply unfair, and [Americans] should be angry about it.”
The concern over “unfairness” is the unsettling ethos underlying President Obama’s economic agenda and, specifically, his proposed tax on America’s banks, intended to recoup dollars shelled out under the bailout program.
President Obama aims to tax banks who received bailout money, despite the fact that they’ve already paid back the bailout money. That policy might “feel” good or sound good to those who are angry at Wall Street, but in practice it isn’t good. Consumers – those same unemployed Americans whose pain Geithner so deeply feels – will be the ones who pay that penalty.