WASHINGTON – Credit unions and league officials have been calling CUNA to express their anger at what CUNA Senior Vice President of Governmental Affairs John McKechnie called the "bounty put on credit union activity by the ABA." The American Bankers Association recently announced that it would award $1,000 to the banker or state trade association official who sent in the best photograph capturing credit union overreach. "I can tell you, that based on the reaction amongst our leagues and some credit union people, I would say that that act by the banks has touched as much of a nerve as anything in this recent campaign," he said. "One credit union manager from the mid-West called and said she had not been this angry at the banks since the days of 1151. A league person said some of the feedback from her credit unions indicates that they feel like the banks have just gone so far over the line that it really is offensive to a lot of credit unions she's talked to and members." "And we have anecdotal evidence," CUNA Vice President of Legislative Affairs and Senior Legislative Counsel Gary Kohn chimed in, "from at least a handful of Hill folks that we've been able to talk to that this is not playing well in Congress either." Kohn pointed to a letter CUNA President and CEO Dan Mica wrote to members of Congress highlighting the ABA's ranking of the credit union taxation issue over terrorism and paralleled the ABA's recent photo contest to Sadaam Hussein paying the families of suicide bombers. "This kind of wreaks of that a little bit," Kohn said.