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The Obama administration has announced that they are preparing to sell off their 27% stake in Citigroup over the course of the next year. As The New York Times reports, the federal treasury stands to make a healthy profit from their bailout of the banking giant:

The Treasury said Monday that it planned to sell its 7.7 billion common shares in Citigroup over the course of 2010 … The government would earn a profit of about $8 billion if it were to sell its entire stake today. That would be on top of $8.1 billion in interest payments and other fees it has already collected, making Citigroup one of the government's most lucrative investments of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The federal treasury has made a $5 billion profit from funds paid back by bailed out banks. And this revelation flies in the face of President Obama’s justification for a new “bank tax” on the nation’s financial industry:

“The president has talked on a number of occasions about ensuring that the money that taxpayers put up to rescue our financial system is paid back in full. That’s been the president’s position,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “I think that’s the least that taxpayers are owed.”

As the CBO stated, the President’s tax would not be paid by those responsible for TARP losses but, as financial guru Suze Orman explained on “Morning Joe”, it would most likely be paid by the taxpayers.

If President Obama is looking to recover losses from the TARP program, he should look to the $30.4 billion lost to automakers or the billions being wasted by his Home Affordable Modification Program. In the meantime, he should keep his hands out of our wallets and his administration out of the way of our economy.