National Nurses United

FTT_JulAug 11/29/11 10:10 PM Page 13 "A real finance tax would generate $350 billion a year in the U.S. alone and bring relief to families out of homes, friends out of work, patients out of care, communities running out of time." Washington, D.C. crowd and predicted that nurses "are going to change the country." In San Francisco, nurses marched from the Federal Reserve Bank to Wells Fargo Bank headquarters and rallied outside. In Los Angeles, nurses marched from the OccupyLA site to the financial district. "We're back here, again, and we're saying the same thing: We need to tax Wall Street, heal Main Street," said Karen Higgins, RN from Massachusetts and a copresident of NNU. "A real finance tax would generate $350 billion a year in the U.S. alone and bring relief to families out of homes, friends out of work, patients out of care, communities running out of time." The global movement for a financial transaction tax on Wall Street and other global markets appears to be working. Bill Gates at the G-20 summit presented a report expressing support for an FTT and was quoted as saying, "The money could be well spent and make a difference." And the day after the G-20 protests, President Obama shifted his stance against the tax, saying the United States "would not block others from going ahead," essentially signaling to Europe that it should try to pass such a tax. Here in the United States, Rep. Peter Defazio and Sen. Tom Harkin have proposed a watered-down, weaker form of an FTT that would impose only a 0.03 percent tax on transactions. Expected to raise only O C TO B E R 2 0 1 1 $350 billion over almost a decade, with half that amount earmarked for debt reduction, their bill does too little, too late for the economy, say critics. It would not generate enough funds to tackle systemic problems like unemployment and the loss of jobs for entire industries, lack of access to healthcare, and our quickly-crumbling public school systems, but also would not make much a dent in the pockets of the big Wall Street firms whose bad bets on mortgages and other toxic assets caused much of the economic meltdown in the first place. "This is far short of what is needed to reframe our devastated economy," said DeMoro. "We do not have nine years to wait. A better approach would be an FTT that raises $350 billion every year." A U.S. financial transaction tax would have very little effect on ordinary investors buying shares of stocks that they plan to hold onto for the long term or for their 401(k) funds. It would primarily affect huge financial institutions that gamble in the market daily, making thousands of trades an hour. Not a new or untested idea, the United States actually had a modest FTT from 1914 until 1966. "Taxes are not a punishment," said Peter Waldorff, secretary general of Public Services International, which represents public sector unions globally. "We collect them to support public services. If you care about the imbalances between the rich and poor, you should support the financial transaction tax." W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 13

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