The award for worst lobbying effort of the day comes from a banking industry flack who’s opposed to Barack Obama’s plan to levy a tax of some kind on the financial sector:
Wayne Abernathy, executive vice president of the American Bankers Association, said in a telephone interview that an industry-specific fee would create a “real fairness issue,” forcing banks to pay for parts of the bailout that “didn’t work.” In addition, Abernathy said, banks are paying an “excellent” return to the Treasury.
That’s right: out of the trillions of dollars of help provided to the industry, there was probably a billion here or there that didn’t have any effect. And that whole economic collapse thing is really turning out to be a windfall for taxpayers anyway! It would be really unfair to hold bankers accountable for any of this.
More PR like this, please. We’ll have pitchforks and torches in the streets yet.
