Let them pay

Goldman wants to pay back their government funds. As long as the government's newly imposed restrictions on how banks can choose to run their business applies to any acceptor of government funding, this is likely to trigger other banks to do the same (even if they are not in as good a shape as Goldman). It is likely the opposite of the government's intention when the funds were issued. Persuading all banks, regardless of relative strength, to accept the bailout money was intended to camouflage bad banks from their healthier cousins. Forcing the healthy banks to reject bailout money by placing restrictions on them post-hoc is going to expose those bad banks sooner than they otherwise would be. This is likely to be a good thing if we are to identify and resolve the problem of insolvent banks with zombie asset on their balance sheets.