Wall Street behavior “shameful,” Obama says

Wall Street’s distribution of nearly $19 billion in end-of-year bonuses to executives and financial managers was “the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful. It's outrageous,” a visibly irked President Obama told reporters as he prepared to enter a Senate Banking Committee meeting chaired by CT Sen. Chris Dodd. 

Obama said that bonus payments may be justified at certain times, but now "is not the time.... You are never going to get any support for the continued tough decisions we 

have to make if this kind of behavior continues."

Wall Street needs to “show some restraint and show some discipline,” Obama fumed.

Dodd later said that he is “demanding that the Treasury Department figure out some way to get the money back,” referring to TARP funds distributed to the financial institutions, some of which was used for the bonuses.