Obama Presses Banks to Lend to Small Business

Banks should return the favor they received in the taxpayer-financed bailout by lending more money to small businesses, President Obama said In his weekly radio and Internet address today. Too many small business owners remain unable to get credit despite administration steps to jump-start lending, which was virtually frozen when the financial crisis took hold last year, he said.

"These are the very taxpayers who stood by America's banks in a crisis, and now it's time for our banks to stand by creditworthy small businesses and make the loans they need to open their doors, grow their operations and create new jobs," Obama said. Earlier this week, Obama criticized the banking industry for fighting the Consumer Financial Protection Agency he has proposed, accusing them of selling out consumers, "despite the fact that those same American consumers bailed them out as a consequence of the bad decisions that they made."