“Why is there so little discussion about one of Bernie Sanders’ most important proposals – to tax financial speculations?”
This is the question posed by Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and current Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, in last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Now that Sanders has been virtually eliminated from the election process, perhaps we can discuss some of the ideas that he espoused without partisan implications.
The Tax Policy Center calculates that a 0.01 percent tax on stock and bond purchases would raise $185 billion per decade. Sanders has suggested 0.05 percent, which would generate enough money to make tuition-free public education possible throughout the nation’s colleges and universities with money left over for other social programs.
“After all,” writes Reich, “Americans pay sales taxes on all sorts of goods and services, yet Wall Street traders pay no sales taxes on the stocks and bonds they buy.” ...
