Obama to banks: 'We want our money back'

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said today he wants to tax banks to recoup the public bailout of foundering firms at the height of the financial crisis. "We want our money back," he said.

In a brief appearance with advisers at the White House, Obama branded the latest round of bank bonuses as obscene. But he said his goal was to prevent such excesses in the future, not to punish banks for past behavior.

It was an emphatic and populist tone for a president keenly aware of public antipathy toward Wall Street. With the sharp words, he also tried to deflect some of the growing skepticism aimed at his own economic policies as unemployment stubbornly hovers around 10 percent.

Obama said big banks had acted irresponsibility, taken reckless risk for short-term profits and plunged into a crisis of their own making. He cast the struggle ahead as one between the finance industry and average people.

"We are already hearing a hue and cry from Wall Street, suggesting that this proposed fee is not only unwelcome but unfair, that by some twisted logic, it is more appropriate for the American people to bear the cost of the bailout rather than the industry that benefited from it, even though these executives are out there giving themselves huge bonuses," Obama said.