“President Biden told advisers late last week that he objected to any prospective aid for the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank that could be cast as a bailout or would reward those who ran the banks or invested in them,” the Washington Post reports.

“By Sunday, the president had agreed to a sweeping intervention that would protect all the bank’s depositors, including large companies. Some Republicans say Biden did what he said he wouldn’t — offer a bailout that rewards the undeserving — but the White House argues that the president’s plan is aimed narrowly at protecting small businesses, nonprofits and thousands of ordinary workers whose jobs were at risk of being wiped out by the bank’s failure.”

“Either way, the president’s private concerns — stemming in part from his belief that the federal government had been too friendly to big banks amid the 2008 financial crisis — highlights the explosive nature of any proposal that is seen as providing federal assistance to wealthy individuals and powerful business groups.”

New York Times: “Washington remains haunted by the specter of government intervention after the banking sector collapse that triggered the Great Recession, leaving leaders of both parties determined to avoid any repeat of that painful period. The colossal bailouts initiated under President George W. Bush and continued under Mr. Obama arguably saved the global economy but also provoked such a ferocious popular backlash that they transformed American politics to this day.”

“The notion that ‘fat-cat bankers,’ as Mr. Obama once called them, should be rescued by the government even as everyday Americans lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings so rankled the public that it gave birth to the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements and undermined the establishment across the political spectrum. In some ways, that popular revolt empowered populists like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, ultimately helping Mr. Trump to win the presidency.”