One of Mayor Bloomberg’s senior aides today accused Washington of attacking banks to “serve the appetite for bloodletting” that’s coursing through the country.

“We don’t want to see our investment banks and Wall Street beaten to a pulp,” Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler said at a breakfast session of the Citizens Budget Commission.

“These are industries that provide enormous taxes for the city, they create thousands of jobs… The populism and that attitude that’s coming out of Washington right now might serve the appetite for bloodletting but it will hurt New York City. That is something that the mayor is incredibly concerned about.”

Skyler said that every $1 billion in profit generated by Wall Street produces about $70 million in tax revenues for the city.