Congratulations Coburn

Respond to the Gang of Six

Have you been watching the debate over whether we'll default on our national debt? Week after week, politicians from both parties have used it as an opportunity to tell us that deficit reduction requires "tough choices" and "shared sacrifice" and "taking on sacred cows." 

But as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently said, "So far, the only sacred cows being gored by budget proposals coming out of Washington are working people, the middle class, seniors and the poor."

Tell your senators and the White House: No cuts to the social safety net. Focus on creating jobs, and make corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share: [ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2565 ].

One recent bipartisan proposal in the Senate cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It chokes job-creating public investments. It slashes education for disadvantaged students. It whacks workers with taxes on our heath care benefits and tax credits. And it kills American jobs--by switching to a "territorial taxation system" that gives corporations incentives to ship jobs overseas and shift profits to offshore tax havens. 

Financial Transaction tax

Hello.

This morning we have the usual conservative politics with a new wave.  We have had the Tea Party /Right wing effort to stop an extension of the debt ceiling.

Now we have "moderate" proposal from the Gang of Six, which is essentially the Simpson-Bowles plan. That is another conservative, not so crazy, right wing assault on benefits and working people.   See the post below by Dean Baker, And, since it is not the crazy Tea Party, the press is picking up on it.

Get as many posts up as you can, letters to the editor, responses on web news stories.  In each case argue for the opposite- a financial transaction tax.  The information you need is on the DSA site;  here. http://www.dsausa.org/docs/taxday.html

intro; 

A: Yes.  Despite what conservatives often say, there are several potential sources of money to pay for the needs of our country.  Perhaps the most promising is a tax on the trading of financial assets, a financial transaction tax, often called an FTT or a “Tax on Wall Street Speculators.”

Q:  How would an FTT work?

A: An FTT would be a small tax on all trading in stocks, currencies, and debt products such as treasury bills and bonds (and futures and options contracts on all of these). Think of it as a very small sales tax. It could be a tax of $1 on every $400 of stocks traded (0.25%); one-quarter of one percent, and $1 on every $800 dollars of currency or debt traded (0.125%), one-eighth of one percent.