US President Barack Obama is considering imposing a fee on banks to help recoup taxpayers’ dollars used rescuing the finance and auto sectors at the height of the economic crisis, an official said on Monday.
Suggestions that banks and finance firms could be hit by such a levy came as Wall Street gears up to announce huge bonus payouts to top executives while the rest of the US remains mired in economic woe and high unemployment.
“The president has made a commitment to the American people that he will recoup their investment in the financial industry,” a senior Obama administration official said on condition of anonymity on Monday.
“While we have made great progress in recouping a large portion of the investment, consistent with the law, the president will propose a way to recoup additional funds and one of the options is a levy on financial institutions,” the official said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs earlier said Obama was committed to ensuring tax payers get repaid for the billions of dollars of support given to finance firms, but would not go into specifics.
“I simply would say that the president has talked on a number of occasions about ensuring that the money that taxpayers put up to rescue our financial system is paid back in full,” Gibbs said.
“That’s been the president’s position. I think that’s the least that taxpayers are owed,” he said.
The Obama administration has repeatedly said it will try to recoup the full cost of the US$700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
A bank fee may also be one way the White House could channel public anger over big bonus payments on Wall Street, as Americans face the reality of 10 percent unemployment and a slow economic recovery.
“I think you’ve heard the president throughout the past year, talk about the continued divergence from in all ways reality of what’s going on Main Street and what’s going on in some of these firms on Wall Street,” Gibbs said.
A Treasury report to Congress published on Monday said the government had committed US$545 billion in TARP funds as of last Wednesday.
Of that figure, US$372 billion have been disbursed, out of which US$165.18 billion has already been repaid by banks, leaving US$209 billion outstanding.
With the bonuses issue likely to explode into political controversy later in the week, the US government made clear however on Monday it had no intention of imposing a one-off 2009 tax on individual bankers bonuses.
Asked if the US was planning to follow moves this week by Britain and France for “community” taxes on bankers bonuses, Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said in an e-mail: “Not at this time.”
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
REASSURANCE: The US said Taiwan’s interests would not be harmed during the talk and that it remains steadfast in its support for the nation, the foreign minister said US President Donald Trump on Friday said he would bring up Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a meeting on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in South Korea this week. “I will be talking about Taiwan [with Xi],” Trump told reporters before he departed for his trip to Asia, adding that he had “a lot of respect for Taiwan.” “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us. I think we’ll have a good meeting,” Trump said. Taiwan has long been a contentious issue between the US and China.
FRESH LOOK: A committee would gather expert and public input on the themes and visual motifs that would appear on the notes, the central bank governor said The central bank has launched a comprehensive redesign of New Taiwan dollar banknotes to enhance anti-counterfeiting measures, improve accessibility and align the bills with global sustainability standards, Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday. The overhaul would affect all five denominations — NT$100, NT$200, NT$500, NT$1,000 and NT$2,000 notes — but not coins, Yang said. It would be the first major update to the banknotes in 24 years, as the current series, introduced in 2001, has remained in circulation amid rapid advances in printing technology and security standards. “Updating the notes is essential to safeguard the integrity
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