January, 12 2010, 04:26pm EDT
Kucinich to Introduce 'Responsible Bankers Act'
WASHINGTON
Washington
D.C. (January 12, 2010) - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today
introduced legislation to impose a 75% tax on the extraordinary bonuses
that bankers are planning to pay themselves using windfall profits
earned from massive taxpayer support of the financial services
industry. The "Responsible Bankers Act" will not penalize banks for
making a profit, but rather will tax the bonus pools that are set aside.
This is the follow up to announcement made by Kucinich on December 10, 2009.
Kucinich,
who has been a leading critic of the government's unlimited support to
Wall Street, remarked; "Bankers are preparing to pay themselves record
bonuses rather than lending and investing in American economic
prosperity. They could use their profits to do many things to improve
the prospects of economic recovery, like strengthen their capital base,
reduce fees charged to customers, or increase lending to small and
medium sized-companies.
"Bankers'
failures to self-regulate, let us remember, were the direct cause of
the crisis we are in today; they need to be told that the money they
are making is a public trust, not something they have earned for good
behavior."
Other
bills being discussed fall short of the Kucinich measure, which taxes
all banker bonuses whether the bank has received or repaid TARP funds
or not. "The aim of federal policy is to give banks the opportunity to
clean up the mess they have created," Mr. Kucinich said today, "but
bank executives still don't get it. They think the profits they are
making are for themselves."
The
Responsible Bankers Act has already received the early endorsement of
Public Citizen, a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization
founded in 1971.
Dennis Kucinich is an American politician. A U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, he was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008.
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