By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — Financial services workers were less than pleased with the continued criticism of banks and emphasis on the public's anger toward Wall Street that President Barack Obama expressed in his State of the Union address Wednesday night.
Obama told a joint session of Congress that some Americans are frustrated and don't understand why "bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded but hard work on Main Street isn't."
The notion was not well received in the Financial District.
"Obama's anti-Wall Street sentiment is scary and really frustrating for those of us working at banks," an analyst in JP Morgan's investment banking division told DNAinfo.
"During the financial crisis, Washington approached individual banks differently, depending on their ability to manage the downturn," the analyst continued. "Now that we've moved past the crisis toward recovery, Washington doesn't make any distinctions between banks. Now Obama's launched a full out war on Wall Street."
The president said Wednesday that both sides of the aisle share an overwhelming anger about the federal government's $700 billion bailout of Wall Street in 2008.
"We all hated the bank bailout," Obama said. "I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal."
While banks that received federal funds have repaid about 70 percent of the money, the president has proposed a tax on large banks to recover the remaining 30 percent.
"If these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need," the president said on Wednesday.
Wall Streeters feel Obama is using their industry as a scapegoat.
"I would say Wall Street is culpable and should pay the consequences, but I just don’t know that the anti-Wall Street attitude coming from Obama and his administration is the right way to go about it," an analyst at Citigroup said.
To boost the small businesses that make up the heart of America's economy, Obama proposed that $30 billion of the repaid TARP funds should go to community banks to help small businesses get the credit they need to stay afloat.
The Citigroup analyst wasn't convinced by this plan.
"I don’t think that doling out money to small banks in Middle America is necessarily going to help the situation," the analyst said. "But I guess I have a very East Coast perspective."
