Nurses Step Up the Call for a Global Financial Tax

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/153054/nurses_step_up_the_call_for_a_global_financial_tax

Before there was an Occupy Wall Street, there was a sea of red on Wall Street, and in Washington cheek to jowl with Wall Street's main lobbying arm, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and at Congressional offices across the country. It was registered nurses, members of National Nurses United, n red scrubs, demanding immediate action with a tax on Wall Street financial speculation to provide desperately needed revenue to heal our economy. The call for a financial transaction tax (FTT), sometimes called a "Robin Hood tax," has inspired a global movement, uniting international labor federations, environmental activists, and non-governmental organizations. They have already persuaded more than a dozen nations to adopt an FTT, and prodded most European Union countries, including conservative governments in Germany and France, to favor it as well. As the campaign for an FTT, a small charge on bonds, derivatives, currencies and similar speculation that targets the big banks and investment firms, has exploded internationally, it remained under the radar in the U.S. until NNU helped rekindle the call for a tax on Wall Street transactions earlier this year.

NNU leaders, seeing the broadening decline in health status and living standards directly linked to the seemingly intractable economic calamity -- from ailments linked to poor nutrition to patients rejecting needed medical care because of cost -- reasoned that a tax on Wall Street could help fund such critical needs as health care for all, jobs at living wages, and full funding for quality public education. Some major U.S. economists, and organizations including the AFL-CIO, Oxfam, Institute for Policy Studies, and Public Citizen have long supported implementation of a tax on Wall financial transactions that are now largely untaxed. Citing the work of eminent economists, NNU says a meaningful FTT could raise up to $350 billion every year to help reframe the economy.

[dkf]

1. Ironic since it is the health care industry that is going to bankrupt us.