Protesters Rally Around Trading Tax
Eliza Newlin Carney (Roll Call)
October 27, 2011

“After weeks of waving signs and chanting with no clear policy objective, Occupy Wall Street protesters finally have an issue to rally around: a tax on Wall Street. Known in Occupy movement parlance as the ‘Robin Hood tax,’ taxes on trades of stocks, bonds and derivatives are getting a fresh look on Capitol Hill and may draw thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C., next week. Helping lead the charge are an unlikely breed of tax activist: registered nurses. … ‘There [are] people in the streets angry about economic inequality, and angry about what Wall Street has gotten away with,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, which supports both bills. ‘The European community is moving ahead with a serious proposal.’ … A DeFazio aide acknowledged that legislation to impose a tax on stock trades and other financial services transactions is virtually dead in the water in the GOP-controlled House. But he noted that the budget deficit is not going away, and that such a tax is a logical place to look for revenue sources. A Friday Capitol Hill briefing on the transaction tax turned into a standing-room-only event. ‘It was twice as many people as we were expecting,’ said Nicole Woo, director of domestic policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonprofit that has helped buttress the academic case for a transaction tax. ‘To me, that is a sign that people are taking this pretty seriously.’” Click here for more.