WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) — Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid urged Merrill Lynch & Co. to reject a request by chief executive officer John Thain for a bonus after the bank accepted aid from the US bailout fund.

"I question the chutzpah of asking for a $10 million taxpayer-subsidized bonus," Reid said in an e-mailed statement today. "I sincerely hope that Merrill Lynch rejects this request."

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Thain proposed to directors that he be paid a bonus of $5 million to $10 million for 2008. The board's compensation committee was resisting as much as $10 million, the newspaper said.

Merrill and Bank of America Corp., which is buying the brokerage, combined received $25 billion from the US Troubled Asset Relief Programme. Others were Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., State Street Corp. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

"The TARP programme, from which Merrill Lynch has taken billions of taxpayer dollars, was designed explicitly to limit executive compensation, bonuses and golden parachutes," Reid said. "Americans deciding which bills to pay this month just to make ends meet do not want their hard-earned money even indirectly spent rewarding executives from banks that are largely responsible for the economic crisis."