America is not broke, despite what advocates for austerity would have us believe.<\/p>\n
This is a very wealthy country.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, transfers of that wealth are not taxed in the same way as the work of American nurses, carpenters, bus drivers and shop clerks. As a result, the federal government struggles to balance budgets, and a yawning gap, between a super-rich 1 percent and the great mass of everybody else, keeps growing.<\/p>\n
Congressman Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, wants to do something about that.<\/p>\n
Ellison is reintroducing his Inclusive Prosperity Act, a proposal to add a small \u201cfinancial transactions tax\u201d on high-volume, high-speed trading by Wall Street speculators. The tax\u2014similar to one that the US imposed until 1966, and to taxes maintained by 40 countries worldwide\u2014would generate roughly $1 trillion in revenue over 10 years.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s money that can help to stabilize federal finances and pay for programs that are currently threatened by the proponents of austerity.<\/p>\n
So, as Ellison explains, \u201cWe\u2019re not broke. We\u2019ve got plenty of money. It\u2019s just not in the hands of the American people because the people with so much of the wealth bought lobbyists and influence to get loopholes for themselves so that they would not have to pay for the civilization that is America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellison\u2019s not listening to the lobbyists. He\u2019s facing the facts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe money is in the hands of the most privileged and well-to-do Americans, many of whom churn\u2014and I don\u2019t say \u2018trade,\u2019 I mean \u2018churn\u2019\u2014stocks, bonds and derivatives on Wall Street,\u201d says the congressman from Minnesota who co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo one of the ways for us as Americans to recoup the money is to tax them when they do this churning of these financial assets,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a transaction tax. It is appropriately named by its most vigorous advocates a \u2018Robin Hood Tax.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Robin Hood Tax won\u2019t solve all of America\u2019s budget problems. But the union that has been leading the advocacy for passage of Ellison\u2019s proposal, National Nurses United, notes that it \u201cwould create a Wall Street sales tax, providing critical new revenue for such critical needs as jobs, healthcare, education, and the international fight against HIV\/AIDS and climate change. It would also allow the U.S. to join the rest of the world in a growing system of financial transaction taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n