Your customized news for Tue, Feb 14, 2012

President Obama's budget plan calls for a bank tax twice as big as the one he proposed last year, a further sign he wants to make anti-Wall Street sentiment a major part of his re-election campaign.

 The bank tax, also known as the "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee," first appeared in Obama's 2011 budget and was projected to raise $90 billion over 10 years. A year later, in the wake of the mid-term elections and accusations from executives that Obama was "anti-business," the White House cut the proposal by two-thirds to just $30 billion.

The Obama administration has repeatedly boasted how the historic rescue of Wall Street will cost taxpayers far less than originally expected. But the budget proposal released Monday came with some unwelcome news: The price tag of the bailout is suddenly going up.

There's something to be said for being a fossil when it's time to look at a phenomenon like Facebook's pending stock offering. The medium is new, the numbers are high, the buzz is huge, but it's the same old story I've seen a million times in four decades of business writing: A hot company is graciously offering the investing public a piece of its action. At a hot high price, of course.

Apple shares broke $500 for the first time on Monday, jumping 25 percent in six months after the hot tech stock passed the $400 mark in July.

The stock opened at $499.53, immediately jumped to $501 and continued to hover around the $500 mark in morning trading. As of 10:30 a.m., the stock was trading around $498 per share.

A construction company working on a huge federally funded project sold stock to members of Congress at discounted prices.

The company, Credit Mobilier, hoped to enrich lawmakers and protect itself from damaging legislation, documents show.

The Obama administration has repeatedly boasted how the historic rescue of Wall Street will cost taxpayers far less than originally expected. But the budget proposal released Monday came with some unwelcome news: The price tag of the bailout is suddenly going up.

— Ezra's guest-hosting the Rachel Maddow Show tonight at 9:00 pm EST. Tune in.

— James Fallows takes a crack at explaining Obama's first term.

— The neuroscience of Adele's "Someone Like You."

— How much of the federal budget goes toward helping the non-working poor? About 5 percent.

Just for fun, I ran the 2011 numbers to see how the "insurer with a large army" description of the federal government held up. Before interest payments, the federal government spent $3.3 trillion in 2011. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security accounted for about $1.5 trillion of that. Defense spending ate up another $838 billion. All other spending -- everything from farm subsidies to education to infrastructure -- came to $900 billion. The final tally: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and security spending took up fully 68 percent of the budget last year.

The final price tag for the bank bailout has fluctuated ever since it passed. But the White House's latest estimate is that it will cost $68 billion, according to President Obama's proposed 2013 budget. That's almost twice the estimate that the $34 billion price tag that Congressional Budget Office has most recently put on TARP.