The Obama administration is calling its proposed $90 billion bank tax the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, and its salesman is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Over the past couple of weeks, Geithner has been making the rounds of the television and radio news circuits, and has been delivering speeches in the hinterlands with Vice President Joe Biden's Middle Class Task Force, to try to convince Middle America that the administration's proposed financial “reforms” are aimed at benefiting Main Street, not Wall Street. “Reform is about protecting the financial security of all Americans” and preventing taxpayers “from having to bear the burden of mistakes on Wall Street,” Geithner said at an April 27 forum at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“Never again should the government bail out a bank or watch the economy implode,” Biden said. “This is a big deal, at a time that matters that we get it right, that we get the shady credit default swaps under control and put things on the level again. What people are upset about is that they don't think things are on the level.”
The public speeches and media appearances were warm-ups for Geithner's May 4 appearance before the Senate Finance Committee to pitch the new tax/fee proposal to Congress.
