As we told you earlier today, President Obama announced his proposal to levy a fee on the largest banks who received bailout funds, over ten years to recoup at least $90 billion.  The President said that it was important that financial organizations lived up to their responsibility and pay back the rest of the TARP money granted by the government because of their greed and mistakes.  Barack Obama has received some criticism lately over kowtowing to financial interests and this seems to be his first effort to take real action against financial institutions and their lobbyists, as opposed to relying on guilt alone.

It's no surprise that the White House is announcing the bank fee now as we have just entered the new season of bank bonuses and popular anger against all things government and banks is not ebbing away.  On the contrary, incumbents are on high alert for the 2010 elections and this appears to be the President's first move to control the message and try to fine tune some of the anger towards the banks.  Major institutions like AIG and Bank of America have earned record profits this year which appears to also be translating into record bonuses, but the President argues that any profits and bonuses this year was directly because of the tax payer bailout.  He called for responsible action on the part of the largest banks, and this time he apparently means to make sure that happens.

Watch his announcement below: