In the debate over who should pay more to bail out the decade-old thrift debacle, recently revived by the American Bankers Association, America’s Community Bankers is fighting back.

ACB, which represents thrifts, is lobbying Congress heavily to stick to the original payment schedule for the Bank Insurance Fund and the Savings Association Insurance Fund. The issue was decided in 1996 when a deal was cut to have each industry pay a certain amount into the funds to cover the cost of the bailout. Those amounts o 6.25 basis points for thrifts and 1.25 basis points for banks–are weighted more heavily on the thrift side now, but amount to more money being paid by the bankers because that industry is larger.

Starting in 2010, each industry would pay 2.3 basis points, an increase for the bankers and a decrease for thrifts. Part of the deal was that the thrift and bank charters would be melded into one when the payments were equalized. The ABA cried foul recently when it learned that there is a possibility that may not happen, because new financial modernization legislation would not eliminate the unitary thrift charter.

The ACB’s message last week was that the 1996 solution was the correct one and it would be a futile "reopening of wounds" to rejigger the deal now. In a document entitled "FICO Obligation: The Real Story," obtained by Financial Modernization Report, the group outlined why it believes the deal did not "squeeze" banks and why it should stay in force. The document said ending the requirement that SAIF members pay higher premiums than BIF members would "risk heightening the premium disparity it averted in 1996" and "pull the rug from under the typical SAIF-insured institution that has paid at least 33 times more in premiums to the FDIC since 1996 than an equivalently sized BIF-insured institution."