By Charles Pope, The Oregonian The Oregonian
The Associated Press Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, right, and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., seen here in 2009, have joined forces again to assess a transaction tax on financial trades. The tax is needed to deter high-volume trading that the lawmakers say distorts the stock market.
WASHINGTON - Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. , escalated his long-running skirmish with Wall Street on Wednesday, offering - for the third time - a plan that would levy a small tax on financial transactions to discourage what he says are ruinous high-volume traders.
"Wall Street is 40 percent of the economy," DeFazio said during a news conference Wednesday to present the latest version of his plan.
"They don't make things. They don't feed people. They churn. They have created volatility; they created the great crash, a recession. And we need to recover. Part of the recovery effort would be aimed toward squeezing out the
most speculative of traders; those who are trading either derivatives contracts, futures, stocks a thousand times a second," he said.
The proposal is substantially different than the ones DeFazio offered in 2007 and again in 2009. This time, the fee, which amounts to 3 cents for every $100, would apply to everyone executing a financial trade no matter how large or small. That is different from the 2009 bill that exempted trades below $250,000. It also carried a fee that was eight-times higher.
An identical version of the bill was also introduced in the Senate by Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin .
A fee at the new level wouldn't harm a small investor because it would amount to an extra $3 on a $10,000 trade, DeFazio and Harkin said. But it would present a considerable cost to traders who use muscular computers to cycle though thousands - and on occasion millions - of deals each day.
Those trades, DeFazio and Harkin said, have destablized the stock market, harmed the retirement funds and investments of average Americans and added little to the overall economy.
"Let me put it bluntly. We need the new revenue that would be generated by this tax in order to reduce deficits and maintain critical investments in education, infrastructure and job creation," Harkin said. "There's no question that Wall Street can easily bare this modest tax."
The Associated Press Trader Richard Scardino, left, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011. Stocks rose sharply in early trading, a day after renewed worries over Europe's debt crisis roiled markets around the world.
"A financial transaction tax is essentially a sales tax on investors. At a time when we face a slow economic recovery, such a tax will impede the efficiency of markets and impair depth and liquidity as well as raise costs to the issuers, pensions and investors who help drive economic growth," Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr., executive vice president the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said in a statement.
The White House has been luke warm to the idea in the past as well, a circumstance that DeFazio blamed on the close ties to Wall Street of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's and former senior economic adviser Larry Summers.
While the transaction fee failed to move even an inch in previous years, DeFazio and Harkin believe the economic and political arguments have improved.
The need to cut the deficit is a singular concern in Washington and the prospect of raising $150 billion or more over 10 years could get some interest, they said. Harkin said he plans to offer the idea to the supercommittee which is trying to find ways to cut at least $1.2 trillion in spending over the next 10 years.
“As a policy-tool, this tax would raise additional revenue in the United States. At the same time, the legislation would be an effective disincentive against some of the speculative trading. As a result it would reduce the amount of resources wasted in the financial sector and allow it to serve its economic purpose more efficiently," said Dean E. Baker, an economist and co-director with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning policy group.
Public anger at Wall Street has also intensified, with Occupy Wall Street protests spreading across the nation.
"The thing that Occupy Wall Street has done is give a clear visual image of the policies the three of us have been advocating since the collapse of our economy in 2007," said Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa who joined DeFazio and Harkin at the news conference.
"The simple truth is, this speculation fee we're talking about is simply designed so those who have abused the system are paying to play," he said.
"These super computers are based on timing principles that have no consideration of how these companies are being managed, the shareholders who are being impacted or the employees who work at those companies.
The transaction fee, which the United States levied for decades until it was abolished in 1966, would also raise billions of dollars that could be used to reduce the deficit or for other purposes. DeFazio and Harkin said their current proposal has not yet been "scored" so there are no precise revenue estimates. Independent budget analysts calculated that their 2009 proposal would have raised $150 billion over 10 years.
DeFazio said that the rate he proposes is far lower than existing rates in most developed nations. He mocked arguments that adding the tax would drive investors overseas.
"I'd say 'sure,'" DeFazio said. "If you want to pay a tax that's three-times higher go to Europe."
It's also less than a fee currently being considered by the European Union. For the average worker who, according to federal data, invests $3,400 a year in a 401(k) retirement account, the transaction tax would add a $1 in addition cost each year.
"What they get in return for that dollar is a lot less volatility. They won't wake up tomorrow morning and say, 'Oh my god, I just lost 5 percent of the my 401(k).' You'll see a lot less of that volatility," DeFazio said, arguing the the tax would reduce the amount of "churning" on Wall Street that contributes to big swings.
"So they're getting essentially an insurance policy here plus we would be investing in the real economy which is going to bring up stocks' legitimate value as opposed to this sort of churn value," he said.
DeFazio and Harkin have collected support from labor and interest groups that have advocating strong oversight and regulation of the financial industry.
Additionally, the legislation has gain endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, as well as 11 House Democrats, including Earl Blumenauer of Oregon .
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