Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 1:01 PM
Subject: My latest column...
…on Huffington front page, CommonDreams and other websites.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-cohen/obama-sarkozy-and-taxing-_b_1199317.html
Jeff Cohen
Obama, Sarkozy and Taxing Wall Street
Posted: 1/11/12 12:50 PM ET
With U.S. media obsessing on the fight here at home among conservatives vying to become president, most of them missed some big news about France, which already has a conservative president. This week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he would take the lead -- even go it alone within Europe, if need be -- in introducing and pushing a Financial Transaction Tax in his country.
That's right -- the conservative president of France wants to tax the financial traders and speculators.
Referring to the tax as a "moral issue" and blaming deregulation and speculation for the global economic meltdown, Sarkozy has said that traders must "repay for the damage they have caused."
What does it tell us about U.S. politics that the conservative president of France - on this issue and others -- is way to the left of President Obama? The U.S. president has not publicly promoted a Wall Street transaction tax (even though U.S. financial institutions, not the French, were largely responsible for the global crisis).
Sometimes called a "Robin Hood tax," a Financial Transaction Tax is endorsed worldwide by everyone from conservative European leaders to the Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury to Bill Gates and Ralph Nader. The tax is tiny per transaction and would barely be felt by middle-class investors or their pensions or 401(k)'s, but it could raise big bucks from high-volume investors and impose a brake on the kind of speculation that tanked the world's economy.
French President Sarkozy keeps explaining to the people of France and Europe that a small transaction tax raises billions for countries facing deficits.
Wouldn't it be something if President Obama went to the American people with such a deficit proposal, instead of putting Medicare on the chopping block?
President Sarkozy invokes the "moral issue" of financial institutions repairing the damage they caused. What a shock it would be to see President Obama aiming the "moral issue" at Wall Street profiteers and demanding repair of damage, instead of rewarding them with top White House jobs.
After failing to get resistant allies among European countries to join him, Sarkozy is going forward on his own - declaring yesterday: "If France waits for others to tax finance, then finance will never be taxed."
Can you imagine Obama standing up to a resistant Congress on a Wall Street transaction tax? He can't even stand up to his own advisers on the issue, according to Ron Suskind's insider book on the Obama White House, "Confidence Men." Suskind reports that Obama briefly embraced the tax and declared at one meeting: "We are going to do this!" But after Obama's top economic adviser (and Wall Streeter) Larry Summers criticized the tax, the idea was buried at the White House.
That was back in 2009. But the idea is still alive on Capitol Hill. A couple months ago, Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Peter DeFazio introduced a Financial Transaction Tax bill in Congress that would easily raise $350 billion over 10 years. Rep. John Conyers introduced a similar bill last year -- it would tax Wall Street to fund federal jobs programs.
A Wall Street transaction tax is backed by National Nurses United and other unions. It's popular with the U.S. public, and would be even more popular if Obama were to campaign for it in 2012.
RootsAction.org has gained 50,000 signatures in support of the tax. You can add your name here to those pushing Obama to (re)embrace the Wall Street tax.
And don't get me wrong about President Sarkozy of France. He's no great humanitarian. But he is facing an uphill reelection battle this year and the conservative president understands how popular a financial tax is with voters.
Facing reelection this year, maybe it's time President Obama came to that same understanding.
Jeff Cohen is co-founder of RootsAction.org, author of "Cable News Confidential ," and founder of the media watch group FAIR.
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Grow Up, Ron Paul
Like many other little American kids, all I wanted to do was eat junk food, play video games and goof around with my friends. I didn’t like being made to go to school, going to bed at 9 PM, eating vegetables, doing homework after school, or taking out the garbage. And like most other little kids who don’t like abiding by the rules of their parents, I sometimes fantasized about what it would be like to run away from home. But when I packed my backpack full of clothes and individually-wrapped packs of peanut butter crackers from the pantry, I could never go through with my plan. I knew if I ran away, I’d be hungry, cold, lost, and eventually found by the police and returned home.
Libertarian views of government regulation are very similar to how the 6 year-old views the authority exerted by their parents. Ron Paul’s every-individual-for- themselves rhetoric appeals to young, radical libertarians with simplistic viewpoints of authority, and an ignorance of why government exists in the first place.
In Ron Paul’s ideal America, safety regulations imposed on employers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would be a thing of the past. Clean air and water regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would be no more. Taxpayers would save money since Ron Paul would abolish the Department of Education and cut the Food & Drug Administration budget by 40%. Employers would save money by paying workers as little as they wish, since Ron Paul would abolish the Davis-Bacon Act. Corporate giants would be free to monopolize markets, since Ron Paul opposes federal antitrust legislation. And employees would no longer be required to pay into Social Security.
So what would this libertarian utopia look like, if Ron Paul were elected and followed through on his campaign promises?
-Families grieving for loved ones lost due to Massey Energy’s negligence in the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion would have to accept that their relatives were casualties of the invisible hand of the unfettered free market. And Massey would've gotten off scot-free for polluting Martin County, Kentucky's drinking water supply with 300 million gallons of coal slurry.
-Millions of college students dependent on Pell grants would be forced to move back home and work minimum-wage jobs, no longer financially able to further their education. Oh wait-- what minimum wage?
-Food recalls would be a regular occurrence when tainted meat and vegetables hit supermarket shelves and cause record outbreaks of e-coli. And risky new drugs will avoid FDA tests and hit the express lane to the pharmacy, endangering the health of millions.
-Too-big-to-fail banks like Wells Fargo, Citi, Chase and Bank of America would be allowed to merge and/or buy out their competitors, as would oil giants like ExxonMobil, and Chevron, as would cell service providers like AT&T and Verizon.
-The Social Security trust fund would become insolvent, making retirement that much harder for those who paid into it all their lives.
Ron Paul and his right-libertarian ideology does espouse a new kind of freedom, just as rebellious children who fantasize about running away from home dream of a new kind of freedom. But as much as we may have rebelled against our parents as little kids, we eventually matured and realized that the rules and regulations our parents imposed on us were meant so we’d grow up to be responsible, functioning adults in society.
An unregulated little kid free to eat junk food and play video games all day won’t ever learn the responsibilities of adulthood. And an unregulated society where every individual is out for themselves will quickly collapse.
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