The vindictive success tax

This can be clearly seen in the treatment of the successful institutions of the financial community that voluntarily or forcibly accepted TARP funds. The program committed $700 billion to financial institutions with troubled assets created by the 2008 financial crisis. Of the original commitment, $500 billion was lent to or invested in financial institutions and $100 billion of these loans were repaid. For its risky investment, America’s unwanted senior business partner pocketed an additional $35 billion in profit within the first nine months of the program. When the remainder of TARP funds is repaid, it is unlikely taxpayers will lose their investment. (This does not include the amount that the administration lent to the automobile industry outside of the original scope of TARP.)

But wait, Uncle Sam wants more from the nation’s most successful and profitable financial institutions: President Obama wants to levy a $90 billion “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee” on the big banks that are the whipping boys for this financial mess. He is exonerating the government, the Fed, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from any responsibility for the financial meltdown so he can place the full responsibility for the meltdown on the nation’s financial institutions. In the process, he can extort additional taxes from them, euphemistically called “Responsibility Fees,” to finance his fiscally irresponsible budget by forcing them to pay twice for their TARP participation. It is clear that his burring rhetoric is blinding even basic accounting.

Why do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get a pass from the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee even though they encouraged risky loans to be given out as a form of welfare? They made the politically correct payoff by flushing out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to Democratic candidates.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the current administration is mustering another surprise attack on capitalism. Irrespective, I have faith that the American people are going to stand up against this thuggery.

Williams can be heard nightly on Sirius/XM Power 169 from 9 to 10 p.m. EST.

Visit www.armstrongwilliams.com.