It’s the Financial Speculation Tax, H.R. 6411, but it’s become known as the Robin Hood Tax, and it’s a very sane tax of 0.05% or less on the transactions and speculative trades of Wall Street. This includes all transactions involving stocks, bonds, foreign exchange currencies, and derivatives (i.e. futures, swaps and options.) The amount is way less than a penny, yet it could easily generate enough revenue to end the AIDS epidemic, support other needed medical care, support small businesses, fight climate change, and so on. What kind of revenue are they talking? $350 billion per year. PER YEAR!
This tax is FOR the people, not ON the people. ONLY the buyers and sellers of such financial products – mostly financial institutions, institutional investors and investment firms – would pay this tax. It’s a tax on the transactions, not on individuals.
introduced by Congressman Keith Ellison, representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional district. Tuesday, October 2nd is a national day of action. Event locations are across the country – from Worcester, MA (hello, Scott Brown) to San Francisco (Nancy Pelosi) to Simi Valley (Tony Strickland) to LV, NV (Dean Heller) to San Antonio (Lloyd Doggett) to Burnsville, MN (John Kline) to Silver Spring, MD (Donna Edwards) and NY, NY (Charlie Rangel), as well as other locations.And if you want to be radical, grab a $1 bill and draw a Robin Hood hat on George in green ink, then sign your name. These are circulating ~ look out for them. And spread the word.
If you are reading this blog, I can’t imagine how this tax could be anything but good for the society in which you reside.
Photo credits: Health Gap