TBTF stands for too-big-to-fail, which refers to the de-facto reality that mega-universal banks are so large and systemically important that they will never be allowed to fail.

But, there’s a new TBTF in town, and by town I mean Washington. The new TBTF stands for the Terminating Bailouts for Taxpayer Fairness Act.

Senator David Vitter (R-LA) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) recently introduced the TBTF bill which politely kicks the long-delayed and excruciatingly wrongheaded Dodd-Frank legislation and the still being massaged Basel III rules to the curb.

Instead, the Senators are taking a simple and elegantly sensible frontal assault approach to ending the original TBTF doctrine. They want mega-banks, those with more than $500 billion in assets to hold a reserve cushion, in equity, of 15%. That would require the protected-class of banks to raise a huge amount of new equity.

According to Goldman Sachs, who looked at the B-V bill, the big banks have raised their capital levels to $400 billion since the financial crisis, but will need an additional $1 trillion in capital if the B-V bill becomes law.

But, it’s not just a capital attack. The B-V bill calls for bank holding companies (BHCs) to separately capitalize their affiliates. BHC entities are a device to manipulate regulations and capital requirements. That means no more shuffling assets and liabilities.

The Act also calls for banks to count off-balance sheet obligations and incorporate onto their balance sheets the counterparty risks they face with the trillions of dollars of derivatives exposure they routinely want regulators to assume are all kosher.

What’s especially gratifying is that BHC affiliates that are not depository institutions and will have to have their own capital, won’t be granted any FDIC backstopping and won’t have access to the Fed’s Discount Window.

It about time we saw that old, venerable Humpty Dumpty Glass-Steagal resurrected.

I’d love anyone or everyone who believes that TBTF banks are a boon to the economy and America’s taxpayers to comment here what purpose, other than their own purposes, do these giant banks serve?

For my money, the big banks are too powerful, control too many members of Congress and have hijacked our democracy and economic future.

I can only hope that new TBTF ends the old TBTF.