October 29th, 2008 by Michael Nystrom
Congressional investigators demanded State Street Corp., Citigroup Inc., and seven other banks justify billions of dollars in pay and bonuses after they accepted $125 billion as part of a taxpayer-funded bailout.

In letters to the nine firms yesterday, Representative Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said they collectively will pay $108 billion in employee compensation and bonuses in the first nine months of 2008, almost the same amount as last year.

"I question the appropriateness of depleting the capital that taxpayers just injected into the banks through the payment of billions of dollars in bonuses, especially after one of the financial industry's worst years on record," Waxman wrote.