Ten years ago Neil Barofsky got the call. His country needed him. The financial sector had collapsed in what would end up being the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, and it was up to Uncle Sam to save the day. Barofsky packed his bags and headed to Washington, determined to do his part as the special inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Unfortunately, Barofsky’s unwitting role in the drama was to provide cover for the very institutions that had caused the crisis, “foaming the runway” for the banks so they could return to business as usual. And return they have. Today, America’s financial behemoths are bigger than ever.

On the tenth anniversary of TARP’s founding, another man has decided to take on the banks. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill in Congress last week — the “Too Big To Fail, Too Big to Exist Act” — to cut America’s biggest financial institutions down to size and, hopefully, prevent a second Great Recession. The primary aim of the legislation is to force the “breakup of any financial institution with a total exposure greater than 3 percent of our nation’s GDP, $584.5 billion.” It targets JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley — which, according to the bill’s summary, control over $10 trillion in assets or 54 percent of the US gross domestic product.