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Tax the One Percent -- Make Wall Street Fund America
The giant cries of protest sweeping across the country are starting to reverberate in the halls of Congress. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) are proposing a Wall Street Tax. Their bill would establish a tiny financial transaction tax of 0.03% on every single trade of stocks, bonds, options, futures, swaps, and credit default swaps.
I think this is a great idea, and Congress should pass the bill. Rebuild the Dream and MoveOn.org started a petition so you can show support for the Wall Street Tax.
Notably, a Wall Street Tax is in the Contract for the American Dream, the 10-point plan to fix our economy that more than 131,000 people created earlier this year, through a grassroots, bottom-up process. To date, more than 300,000 people have signed the Contract for the American Dream. In other words, the idea of a Wall Street Tax is already popular.
The Wall Street Tax would be a tiny cost for those of us socking away our savings for retirement or our children's education -- the average person paying into a 401(k) would pay only one dollar per year.
But Wall Street traders could no longer bet thousands of times a second for free. Much of the risk in today's market comes from rapid-fire "flash trading," where financial firms use computer algorithms to make thousands of trades per second. This doesn't add any real value to the market or to our economy.
When we buy something of real value, like a winter coat for our kids, we pay a sales tax, and rightly so. Yet these Wall Street speculators pay zero taxes while making a fortune passing electrons back and forth millions of times a day, all the while destabilizing our economy.
The Harkin-DeFazio Wall Street Tax is common sense. The concept has been around for a while. Hundreds of economists and responsible investors have long called for it, including Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, plus stock market billionaire Warren Buffett and former Goldman Sachs Chairman John Whitehead.
This idea is already law in several countries, including financial centers like the UK and Hong Kong. And the European Union is currently considering a much steeper version of what's on the table in the U.S.
The Wall Street Tax would raise somewhere between $700 billion and $1.2 trillion over ten years, critical funds we need to create jobs and protect vital programs.
Meanwhile, the Super Committee has been charged with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions and has floated the idea of targeting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Notice: the Wall Street Tax would cover nearly all of the Super Committee's mandated deficit reductions.
Congress is about to face a telling choice. Will they vote to tax Wall Street gamblers in the 1%, or cut the Social Security checks of senior citizens in the 99%?
Members of Congress should take note: If they vote against the 99% on this bill, they should be prepared for the 99% to vote against them next November.
Go here to learn more about the bill and what citizens can do.
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42 Comments so far
Show AllGood and concise. And you hit the real point of the transactions tax: To put a brake on runaway churning of stocks. Revenues are just an added bonus.
The stock market is supposed to fund real business not be a casino for the well connected.
If the boys want to play craps they can drive down to Atlantic City. I wonder if corporate persons can get away with calling poker winnings capital gains? No, I guess they have to pay tax on it like the rest of the rubes.
the republicans are blocking anything that would raise taxes on the Top one percent.
Joshua Holland, in an article on Alternet said it best - "... our economy can't function without a healthy, educated, and economically secure workforce." I think this would be a great rebuttal to their idocy.
I think this is what they want. A dumbed down population. Look at the crap on tv these days. Reality shows. Wife swap? Really?
Close down the schools, make learning tests only, and you get people that will work at wal mart or mcdonalds.
this has been their plan for a long, long time.
Great plan, easy to implement, feasible to push through politically, and no significant downsides (except to those poor ol' one-percenters). So -- let's do it. This is one concrete, specific measure that the OWS and OWS sympathizers could and should focus on that would yield immediate benefits.
I'm especially impressed by the contrast between buying consumer goods and paying sales tax, and trading securities without being taxed. Also, the market is clearly not for real people now that computers can buy and sell millions of equities a minute ("flash trading"). The proposed tax should curb that kind of chicanery.
I'm waiting to see the Republicans try to make a credible argument that flash trading benefits the economy.
By the way, isn't it about time to restore Van Jones' reputation, which was flagrantly trashed by conservatives before he resigned in 2009 as Obama's Special Advisor for Green Jobs? He ought to be considered for high office.
"By the way, isn't it about time to restore Van Jones' reputation, which was flagrantly trashed by conservatives before he resigned in 2009 as Obama's Special Advisor for Green Jobs? He ought to be considered for high office."
Sorry, but not as long as he keeps up his support of Oblahblah.
corvo, I searched a good while in the Net and could find no support by Jones for Obama's re-election. Some of Jones' ideas are similar to those expressed, but clearly not carried out, by Obama. That might make him a supporter of some things Obama has said. I don't take that as support for what Obama has done, or not done. So far my impression is that he is in line with Tavis Smiley and Corell West. What evidence do you have that he's now endorsing Obama for re-election? What does he think about holding the architects of torture responsible for that criminality (which I view as a progressive litmus test issue)?
Jones' thinking is important. He scores high in charisma, unlike Nader or anyone else that has recently run as a progressive. If he ran for office, particularly for president, he could immediately attract a substantial percentage of Obama's black supporters, without which Obama can't win in 2012. I'd like to know if he would be willing to pit himself against other progressives in a public selection process similar to what the Republicans are doing. Jones on stage with other progressives seeking to topple Obama would attract MSM attention, which could only be a plus.
It is true that Van Jones hasn't made a formal presidential endorsement -- yet. But take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0FVgLg0iI4. Especially starting at minute 3. Particularly emetic is the moment where Van Jones says that OWS can be the movement that "makes Obama a great president." Then he proceeds to make excuses for Oblahblah. Face it, the guy's still hoping his boss's boss's boss will still love him again someday.
corvo, Thanks for the cite. I'll check it out and let you know what I think.
corvo, as promised in my earlier comment, I viewed the video. Jones isn't as strong as I would have hoped in the video, but he didn't say he was going to support Obama because he admires Obama's views. He said Obama is the best we can hope for at this time, and would be more likely than other potential presidents to respond to pressure from OWS. Jones also was clear in denying any aspirations on his part to replace Obama. So I have to agree with you. Jones lacks the backbone needed to challenge Obama effectively. We'd better look elsewhere.
Thanks again for finding that video!
If we didn't have an obstructionist house majority who would rather see Americas economic system totally fail rather than see Obama appear succsesful, we may have a chance of pulling our economy back together. Tax the top one percent, the corporations, insurance companies, etc, fuck the republicans, they will destroy America before they will break their Grover Norquist promise. Yes the whole system is crooked, but the republicans could care less about America, just profits for their contributors. The democrats are not quite that bad, at least they want us to have health care, the repubs all voted against any health care, single payer? They say fuck the poor, the repubs are 100 percent against anything that would help the 99 percent.
"The democrats are not quite that bad, at least they want us to have health care, the repubs all voted against any health care, single payer?"
Single payer was never up for a vote -- because the President and his party (guess which one!) wouldn't put it on the table. And what his party voted for wasn't health care; it was a bailout of the health insurance industry: Romneycare on a national level.
Corvo, you are no doubt a republican, you could care less for the American people, the health care public option and single payer were up for votes and your republican bastards fought for the top one percent, along with that little whining ass hole lieberman from hartford conn. The democrats did promote health care for the working class and poor, not only Obama but Hillary too. The republicans are the one percent! Ass holes!
Assuming for a moment that you're not a troll, read this:
http://www.salon.com/2010/10/05/public_option_24/
Open your eyes and become whole. You are being used.
Dip
constitutional, you need a little education on the health care debacle. Obama worked behind the scenes to kill the PO. And he did that with big Pharma.
I will agree with you that the republicans are bastards, but the Dems really are not that much better.
Obama said he would veto any bill that didn't have the PO in it, and that mandatory insurance was a bad thing. Remember any of that from his debates and the campaign trail?
Now, many companies are getting exceptions and being able to opt out of Obama's healthcare.
Here is the proof.
Truth about the public option momentarily emerges, quickly ...
Oct 5, 2010 – Tom Daschle confirms, then denies, what has long been clear: Obama secretly negotiated it away early on.
I need no education on the keep the government out of my health care, you have no health care damn it! I agree Obama could have helped more openly, but he got a lot farther than Hillary got. You are the one who needs more education on health care, the god damn republicans said social Security would breaks the country in the thirties, the god damn republicans said Medicare would break the country in the sixties and the god damn republicans stopped our health care now! Along with the blue dog dems, who are republicans in democrat disquises, and that little whining piece of shit Lieberman from his insurance town Hartford conn.
Your "little whining piece of shit Lieberman" reregistered AS A DEMOCRAT the September after his was reelected to the Senate on his own ticket.
Wrong on all counts. Who pre-emptively took single payer off the table and excluded any D such as Conyers who wanted single payer?. It was the D leadership. The R party is beneath notice. They don't want any health care, not even Medicare or Social Security or WIC that allow people to eat, which is a fundamental part of healthcare. They would scuttle it all in a minute if they could. But the D party is their sneaky enabler. They want gradual dismantling, frog boiling.
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Correct. The majority of Democrats suck on health care. Anything short of single payer is a red herring. It's the only plan that could successfully and sufficiently control costs.
First of all, I support this tax. But it should've been put in place at least 20 years ago.
A stock transaction tax will not balance the damage the super-rich have done to America. We need much stronger measures to undo that damage. There's been so much talk about this miniscule transaction tax that the super-rich have probably conceded on it -- in order to avoid much larger and more substantial demands. They're hoping us little people will go back to the bread & circuses.
So here's what's really needed:
* Restore the super income tax rate of the Eisenhower years. The top 1% should pay at least 30% extra on their annual incomes. No exceptions, no loopholes.
* In California, reform the infamous Proposition 13 to apply to primary home, residential properties only with mandatory re-assessment of all commercial properties. No exception, no loopholes.
* Update and re-institute the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 with no exceptions, no loopholes.
* If a corporation wants to keep tax exemptions and incentives, they have to stop downsizing workers while profitable and end all foreign worker H1B visas. Hire Americans in America or give up your tax incentives.
f we're going to raise hell and make demands as a citizenry, lets demand much more than a paltry .5% stock transaction fee.
The greedy-rich CEOs, who earn in a day what a worker makes in a year, should pay the same multiple in taxes. In other words, if the greedy-rich make 350 to 400 times what a worker makes, he/she should pay 350 to 400 times the taxes that workers pay.
.03% is at least 100 times too small.
Yes, way too low. The demand should be for no less than 1%. .03% is quite lame which would allow the reactionary republicans and complicit democrats to get it down even further. Start with the 1% and let Wall Street howl.
My thoughts exactly.
The same party (Democrats) that passed tax cuts for the rich when they controlled Congress is now asking the rich for the money back after they lost control of Congress. In addition, Obama's so-called jobs proposal offers cash rich companies more tax cuts, and some corporate CEO's came out afterwards and said the problem is demand, not supply (companies). Wake up Demobots, to the Democratic dog and pony show and Van Jones is part of it!
Whoa, if I were a bettin man I'd sure as hell not piss off the seniors. WS just has a bull. Seniors got oxygen tanks and matches, and they've bout had enough crap.
A tax on the richest 2% is being proposed. Of course the richest 2% can veto any congressional vote, as usual.
taxes are compensated by setting prices - no logic even talking about it
you hear about them so you thinking is occupied
the summary of history: as long as you promote the poisonous taxation and refuse the only logic of financially responsible and independent government you will have the republicans breading on your necks, paralyzing and detracting your normal life and existence
..."Members of Congress should take note: If they vote against the 99% on this bill, they should be prepared for the 99% to vote against them next November." and who will the 99% vote for?
No one currently running for office on the national level. I think it is now impossible to work within the existing political structure. The bankers write the laws, and these people pretending to be citizen-legislators sign off on them in order to keep their cushy jobs. They are no longer legitimate, and they should not be recognized with title of Senator or Representative before their names. The President should not be recognized with the title of President. They are just a group of flim-flam men and women who have gotten together and decided what will benefit them personally. They are not worthy of their titles, and they should never be called by their titles or counted on to do their jobs and enact legislation that benefits us.
At one point, I thought Ron Paul was the only candidate left who might actually fight to end the wars and Free Trade Agreements, etc., but when he said the people in the OWS movement were just looking for hand-outs, I decided that he didn't deserve my support.
There's no one for whom to vote at this point. The only hope I have is the movement which, as Chris Hedges writes:
"...will face reverses and setbacks, but will, if successful, ultimately tear down the decayed edifices of the corporate state."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page3/a_master_class_in_occupation_20111031/
"I think this is a great idea, and Congress should pass the bill. Rebuild the Dream and MoveOn.org started a petition so you can show support for the Wall Street Tax."
Oh, a petition! Yes, let's all sign the petition, because we know petitions are really effective! All signing that petition will get you is your name on Moveon's mailing list. Of course, taxing the 1% is a good idea, but it isn't going to happen through MoveOn or any other group which still remains a part of the political process.
From Alan Nasser at Counterpunch:
"MoveOn has already moved in....An effective Fifth Column can waste no time.The organization is in effect an arm of the Democratic Party. It creates a political space in which activists who might otherwise be building a Left political alternative to the Democrats can be seduced to remain in the Party. Accomplishing this goal has never been more urgent to the Democrats than it is now. Disaffection with Obama and the Party is rampant in liberal circles. But MoveOn’s meetings will never conclude that the Democrats’ performance demonstrates that working within the Party will not move us away from Uncle Sam’s multiple wars or toward national health care and a reversal of the tendency toward widening inequality."
and:
"I stumbled onto MoveOn’s organization here in Tacoma when I misread an announcement and ended up not at an OWS meeting but at MoveOn’s initial gathering. The people were seated, much like an audience, in front of a table where the two MoveOn representatives were signing people up."
"The MoveOn representatives were in charge....Another member of our group asked why the independence concern was not acknowledged, and by the way, why should we not join the OWS people who were at this moment occupying a park on Tacoma’s main drag. Is there any reason why we should not be united? The rep replied that OWS and “our” group were “two different organizations.”
"Keeping the Democrats on the hook should be implicit in whatever pointed demands OWS might come up with. That won’t happen if MoveOn has its way."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/01/keeping-democrats-on-the-hook/
Raise all the taxes you want. It won't make a difference. No matter how much you raise taxes debt will just grow and grow and grow. You people need to drop the class warfare deal here because its not the %1 thats screwing us. Its %.001 that OWNS the banks.
Van Jones is just a shrill.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544
While everyone wants jobs and a growing economy has anyone considered that
an increase in business as usual will result in a corresponding increase in
greenhouse gases and environmental degradation?
It is as instructive as it is depressing to read the clear-headed and practical suggestions of Van Jones (although he is hardly the first to advance the idea about which he is writing). Seventy-five or eighty years ago with a more severe but similar economic malaise, FDR empowered a guy named Harry Hopkins who, with a card table, telephone, ledger sheet, and list of phone numbers managed to employ several hundred thousand people and spend many millions of dollars doing so within the first thirty days of being on the job as director of the Works Progress Administration.
They helped build modern bridges from the Tribourough in New York City, to the Golden Gate in San Francisco. They built the Bonneville (later renamed the Hoover) dam as well as the Tennessee Valley authority system which gave electric power and dependable flood control to whole regions. In the process of spending tens of millions of dollars, the WPA not only gave out gainful employment to potential tax payers, it also created multiple billions of dollars of revenue producing infrastructure.
Van Jones reminds me of Harry Hopkins because he is an innovative thinker who is not confined to the boxes of conventionality which imprison the thinking of most of the political hacks who occupy government at all levels today. In 1933 Harry Hopkins had the chance to prove himself and his ideas. In 2011 Van Jones is publicly vilified while the sock puppet in chief in the White House wrings his hands and plaintively whines to a know-nothing Republican congress, "puleeze, can't we all just get along?"
That is both the instructive and depressing part--to see people of practical and innovative vision being deliberately thwarted instead of being given a chance to prove the worth of their ideas. It was not always so.
Van Jones -- Obot, Sycophant, and MoveOn Shill!
Van Jones, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, serves up yet another cliché-ridden infomercial for Obama 2012, without actually mentioning Obama -- how diabolically clever!
What a transparent attempt to co-opt the OWS movement for the purpose of turning it into a cash cow for Obama and the Democrats' 2012 re-election campaigns. Jones shamelessly appropriates the populist language of the Occupy demonstrators -- the 1% versus the 99% -- and transforms it into a market-tested, focus-grouped. fund-raising campaign using the "Wall Street Tax" as the bait.
Jones' ploy features two Democrats portrayed as the good guys -- Rep. Peter DeFaziio (D-OR) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) -- "proposing" legislation that would impose "a tiny financial transaction tax of 0.03% on every single trade of stocks, bonds, options, futures, swaps, and credit default swaps." How fucking predictable, not to mention too little too late.
Sadly, the Democrats always "propose" populist legislation which they toss out as red meat for their "base" in anticipation of the upcoming election, and they do this while making the rounds of all the liberal-progressive talk-radio and MSNBC shows to plug their latest "proposed" populist legislation (which is going nowhere) and to hawk their campaign websites in a not-so-subtle request for donations.
Does anyone really believe the "Harkin-DeFazio Wall Street Tax" has a snowball's chance in Hell of ever making it to the House floor with Speaker John Boehner in charge? Or making it to the Senate floor controlled by Blue Dog Democrat Harry Reid?
Besides, once the GOPers threatened to filibuster the "Wall Street Tax" bill, Hapless Harry would wring his hands and tremble and fold like a cheap suit. Of course, Old Harry could make the GOPers filibuster for real by making them stand on the Senate floor and talk until they drop, but he doesn't have the guts or the will to do so. Harry the Enabler would rather whine and complain that those nasty mean GOPers killed the bill.
But, by all means, sign the meaningless "feel-good" petitions and receive 50 emails per day from Van Jones and from MoveOn featuring market-tested populist headlines, plus the "Donate" command, and the PayPal button. It's your money, suckers!
Note to Van Jones: This country doesn't need to "rebuild" the cynical fantasy known as the"American Dream" -- a ploy used by elites to perpetuate a state of mass delusion among poor and middle-class Americans so that they won't notice the degree to which they have been abused and robbed of their wealth and their futures by the self-serving GOPers and Democrats alike.
What this country needs is a New American Reality -- not a fucking dream! We need to build a society that is envisioned and conceived and shaped by the majority of Americans -- the 99% who are ready and eager to participate and contribute their talents to create a future in which they will enjoy not a dream but a new Reality that promises an equal share of the nation's the wealth and in which they are rewarded for their productity in an atmosphere of peace, prosperity, opportunity, high-quality single-payer health care, and social justice for themselves and their their families and their communities.
PS -- Barack Obama is the 1%...make no mistake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yo Sarah!
Hey, dudette, take your meds and get a nap and things will be better--really!
Poet
Clearly, you lack the rhetorical and intellectual furniture to deal with the style and substance of my comment; hence, you proffer the classic Obot's response: insult the commenter with a personalized, passive-aggressive, ad hominem attack that is straight out of Daily Kos:
1. Address the commenter with "Yo" before his or her name just to establish what you imagine to be your hip-hop street cred...despite the fact that the term "Yo" has been passé for at least a decade;
2. Imply that the commenter with whom you disagree is suffering from some serious psychological disorder and then direct the individual to take his or her "meds" -- as if anyone with whom you disagree must be crazy;
3. Patronize the commenter by adopting the condescending tone of an overbearing parent speaking down to a recalcitrant child by telling him or her to "get a nap" to make things better;
4. Finish off the insult with "really!" -- as if your sad little one-liner needed additional emphasis to make the point.
The only classic DKos insult you left out was to accuse the commenter of being a troll -- preferably a paid troll -- but perhaps you're saving some comic-insult magic for later.
Finally, your response to my comment speaks for itself and says a great deal more about you than it does about me or the substance of my argument which you failed to address on the merits.
PS -- Just think. If this were DKos, you could petition the Great Orange Satan to have me banned for heresy.
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i wd like to send Van Jones an email asking a question. after 20 minutes or so searching for it, i have concluded -- very reasonably i think -- the he does not make his email address available to us 99%ers, i.e., on the internet, so i am putting the email here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Jones,
i don't understand your "1%" tag. why not ".01%"? this wd get at the trouble makers. but your "1%"?
let me tell you how i see yr 1%" tag. i live in a small town in the pacific northwest of about 16,000 people. your "1%" tag is telling me that there are about 160 people among us virtually all of whom:
are 5 times richer than the rest of us
have gotten at least the major part of their wealth in ways which are destructive of the society
are contemptuous of the rest of us
are anti-union
are not merely lacking in compassion towards others, but are sociopathic
do you subscribe to this view?
regards,
tom arnall
arcata, ca
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"industrial democracy -- sure cure for speculative cancer." jim hightower