It appears that big bonuses are back on Wall Street....er rather, maybe they never really left.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available." Let me repeat that -- more than one-third of all pay in the U.S.

Adding to the slew of evidence that big banks are already returning to their old (economy-crushing) ways, the Washington Post reports that the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion in 2009 for bonuses and other compensation--up $14 billion from last year alone. These six banks -- Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley -- are all TARP recipients, and we're not talking chump change here either.

So today, we thought we'd highlight one particularly egregious example of "old habits dying hard." And that's putting it lightly.

To date, Citigroup has received $45 billion dollars in bailout money. Curious as to what this deeply-wounded bank has been doing recently to get back on their feet and pay American taxpayers back? Raising interest rates on as many as 15 million credit card holders, organizing a call to "build opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act" and and doling out million-dollar bonuses to their "star" company bigwigs, of course! Because who deserves an $100 million bonus more than a big deal energy trader who works for a bank that's 33 percent owned by the government? (As Citi helpfully points out, giving company higher-ups compensation bonuses they can't really afford is how they retain talent and turn such monumental profits. Oh wait....)

"As millions of families struggle just to hang onto their homes and get through the next month's bills, the architects of the economic crisis are using our tax dollar bailouts on the kind of bonus money that finances glitzy Upper East Side Penthouses and glamorous Riviera getaways," said SEIU president Andy Stern. Rather than focusing on paying back the billions they borrowed, financial institutions like Citigroup continue to hold onto the failed policies of the past that enrich the very few at top while indebting the rest of America.

The White House's executive pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who's charged with reining in what the administration sees as extravagantly oversized bonuses, will most likely vet whether or not Citigroup's energy trader Andrew Hall--who owns a 1,000-year-old castle and extensive modern art collection rumored to be valued at around $60 million--gets his $100 million bonus. Which begs the question: Are wealthy Americans truly turning back to pre-crisis habits, even as most of the country remains in deep economic stress?

Watch MSNBC's take on the situation:

Bailout architects have stuck to their story that the government will probably to get most of the bailout money back. But since the bailouts began almost a year ago, Wall Street's refusal to scale back dangerous pay habits like these make it seem probably that the federal government--and taxpayers--can say "sayonara" to some of their money.

Now more than ever, we need the Employee Free Choice Act to level the playing field against this kind of excessive corporate greed.