TOUGH GUY

Obama: Banks Will Pay

Touts plan to tax finance for bailout costs.

It's hard to find a less popular foil for the White House than bailed-out banks, and the administration is doing its best to show off its new plan to make financial firms pay for the unpopular bailout. President Obama talked up the proposal in his radio address Saturday, but also defended the initial bailout. He said that banks faced a "crisis of their own creation," but that the "distasteful but necessary" bailout prevented an "even greater calamity for the country." Nonetheless, he said recent news that some banks, such as Goldman Sachs, had paid back their funds was "good news" but still not enough. "We want the taxpayers' money back, and we're going to collect every dime," he said. The proposed 0.15% tax on banks would collect about $90 billion over 10 years and apply to approximately 50 of the country's largest banks.