Dems push Wall Street tax despite White House, GOP opposition

[cal04]

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/192031-dem-lawmakers-push-wall-street-tax-despite-gop-obama-opposition

A group of congressional Democrats is pushing on with their efforts to enact a tax on financial transactions, in the face of what they acknowledge are long odds.

The financial transactions tax has prominent supporters in Europe, including President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

But the Obama administration has decided against embracing the idea, most recently at a meeting of the Group of 20 nations in France. Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill remain opposed to tax increases, and banking and financial advocacy groups are also fiercely against the transaction tax.

(snip)
“The Republican majority will decide whether we take this bill up or it passes,” said Peter Welch (D-Vt.). “But it’s kind of hard to defend some of the conduct.”

[yourout]

1. This by itself would go a long way to stabilize Wall Street and the economy.

[gulliver]

2. If it made it through Congress, Obama would sign it.

It's a great idea. We need more Dems in office.

[Scuba]

4. Why isn't he pressing for it?

[Better Believe It]

6. Because he opposes it.

[Ship of Fools]

12. I hadn't heard this --

He was actually pushing for this a couple of years back. Did he switch his position?

[gulliver]

8. He may. If he doesn't, I have no doubt it is because he wants...

...to stay in office. In every job I have ever had, there have always been things I believed in that I could not press for. The article just says Obama has not "embraced" it. You have to pick your battles.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. And which battles has he picked, in the financial world?

He opposes this, yet you just had to post that he'd sign it if it passed and that sort of speculative stretch is part of the problem.

[gulliver]

11. It just says he has not embraced it.

That doesn't mean he opposes it. Moreover, even if he said he opposed it, it would not mean that was his preference. The reasoning behind this should be fairly obvious. If you want to go to Taco Bell, but everyone else wants to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken you are basically stuck with KFC. And if you keep complaining about Taco Bell being better, you don't get invited to lunch any more. It's not rocket science.

Obama got us a major financial reform bill that the Republicans completely despise. How soon we forget.

If you want more from Obama, you have to fight his enemies, not him.

[ArcticFox]

3. This would severely reduce high frequency trading

Adding a small tax on trades would eliminate the practice, which depends on making fractions of a penny per share traded.

[Scuba]

5. And that's a good thing!

[yurbud]

7. Has Obama said he will veto it if it gets to his desk?

[tritsofme]

10. The WH does not typically issue veto threats to bills that have no chance of passing

either house of Congress.