Eliot Spitzer: Tax the Traders! It Would Solve Economic Crisis and Stop Reckless Activity [View all]

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/eliot-spitzer-tax-traders-it-would-solve-economic-crisis-and-stop-reckless-activity



Both the White House and House Republicans, publicly at least, are digging in their heels deeper and deeper in the so-called negotiations over what we call, alternately, the fiscal cliff, the fiscal slope, the austerity bomb, or the cable-talk-show topic of last resort.

Whatever logic either side pretends to have is irrelevant to the other side, because each is speaking a different political language and indeed a different economic language.

I agree with the White House on the substance of the debate, and I think the administration’s hand gets stronger over time . But as anyone who has been through negotiations will tell you, sometimes you just need a new idea to change the dynamic.

This one is not so new; it has been around for a long time, supported by a wide range of economists, including Nobel laureate James Tobin, as well as advocates, including Ralph Nader in the Washington Post this weekend, and elected officials: a tax on financial transactions. It will give us gobs of revenue. It will fall on a sector that has generated enormous and unwarranted profits for a very few, who at the same time have benefited from huge bailouts and regulatory help and largely escaped any responsibility for their central role in creating the financial cataclysm that we are still struggling with.