From NewsWeek.com:
The big banks are considering challenging President Obama's proposed tax on very large banks and financial institutions in court as unconstitutional. Let's see if I have this right. The Federal Reserve deciding unilaterally, without public debate, to assume hundreds of billions of dollars of financial companies' liabilities, spent hundreds of billions to buy mortgage-backed securities and potentially expose taxpayers to massive losses: That's totally constitutional. Congress passing a law suggesting that a small portion of the bailed-out financial industry, which is still benefitting from massive government subsidies, pay a fee for running huge balance sheets: That's unconstitutional.
The industry has argued that the Obama bank tax would hurt the recovering economy because banks would pass on higher costs to customers and borrowers rather than eat them. Higher taxes mean less money available for lending. In theory, that may be true. But when you consider the size of the banks, the size of the tax, and the vast sums of money they squander each quarter because of poor lending decisions—the proposed banking tax is a drop in the bucket.