A "risk fee" for big banks

There is a lot of concern about the debt that the US is piling up. This article mentions one of the more creative ways to cut the budget deficit and reduce the debt. The article basically states that the government needs to tax large banks with assets of more than 50 Billion dollars. These banks should pay a fee for putting the system at risk. The premise is that these banks put the system at risk by being highly leveraged. The higher the risk posed to the system, the higher the tax.So since, they put the system at risk, they have a responsibility towards the system as well and that can be discharged by paying this fee. This is not a particularly harsh measure considering the fact that the government would "loathe"to let these banks fail even if they take excessive risks. So the least that they can do is pay for this unofficial governmental insurance. This is expected to usher in 90 Billion dollars over the next decade. Other benefits include deterring excessive leveraging and rewarding sound management because banks would like to keep their leveraging and risk taking to a minimum since they will have to pay huge fees if they do so.