Americans Suffer While Finance Tax Waits for Congress’ Attention

[marmar]

Americans Suffer While Finance Tax Waits for Congress’ Attention

Posted on Apr 24, 2013
By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law


More than a thousand people gathered in Washington, D.C.’s Farragut Square on Saturday to demand that a financial transaction tax be placed on derivatives and other forms of speculation. The proposed tax on financial transactions, detailed in a bill Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., introduced to Congress a week ago, would generate more than $300 billion a year in revenue, thereby doing away with the need for the sequester currently forcing across-the-board budget cuts.

The Financial Transaction Tax, or Robin Hood Tax, has a broad base of support. Nurses, environmentalists, union workers, and people living with HIV/AIDS, for example, spoke at the rally on behalf of Americans who have been exploited at the expense of profit on Wall Street. The tax resonates with many Americans because of its simplicity and concrete purpose—it takes a modest percentage of profits from a multitrillion dollar market on Wall Street and uses that revenue to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure that allowed financial corporations to generate their wealth in the first place.

Transaction taxes aren’t new. The United States had one from 1914 to 1966. In 1932, it was more than doubled to 0.05 percent to help recovery after the Great Depression. Today, more than 40 countries have a transaction tax, with 11 in the European Union, including Germany and France.

After 1966, the tax was eliminated and replaced with a modest Financial Speculation Tax that now finances the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, two agencies Wall Street emaciated in the following decades. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americans_suffer_while_finance_tax_waits_for_congress_attention_20130424/

[Bill USA]

1. This is clearly what is needed. But Wallstreet will fight it every inch of the way. People need to

aggressively lobby for this, calling an emailing their Congressmen or Wallstreet will continue to get their way and we will be in for another Trickle Down disaster.

recommended!

[midnight]

2. "A growing private sector and shrinking public one does not bode well for people who have little

economic value." This statement should have everyone concerned about the shift to privatization....