AFR Applauds President’s Announcement Of Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee;  Urges Additional Actions To Protect Consumers And Hold Wall St. Accountable

Groups Also Urge Congress To Pass Financial Speculation Tax

Washington, D.C. – Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) released the following statement today on the President’s proposal for a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee:

Heather Booth, Director, Americans for Financial Reform: “Americans for Financial Reform, and our more than 200 coalition partners, applaud President Obama’s proposal for a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee as an important step in protecting taxpayers and ensuring that Wall Street is held accountable. The fee the President proposes will help taxpayers recoup some of the money used to bail out the big banks and financial institutions, and it reaffirms the basic principle that the biggest lenders cannot gamble recklessly and then expect taxpayers to pay their debts.

The President is right, that to get our economy back on track, we need that principle—and accountability and fairness– to be the ground rule for the financial markets.

Passage of a Financial Speculation Tax (FST) is another important piece of such reform.  An FST, in addition to raising $100- 150 billion a year, would also rein in Wall Street by discouraging excessive speculation.

Robust financial reform, including an independent CFPA, exchange trading of derivatives, and rigorous, democratic, and accountable systemic risk management is also vitally important to meet these goals.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Administration and with Congress to stand up to Wall Street, who is using our bailout money to lobby against real reform.  Even today the Chamber of Commerce sent out a letter stating their opposition to the Responsibility Tax.

We need to put policy changes in place to protect working families and small businesses by reining in the greedy, reckless behavior of big banks on Wall Street that cost millions of jobs. These reforms will strengthen our financial system, and our economy, and will help to prevent another financial crisis.”