Speculation on the deficit commission’s lack of a Wall Street speculation tax
The draft recommendations issued this week by President Obama’s deficit commission co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, were both disappointing and highly suspect when they blatantly omitted a speculation tax on Wall Street and the financial industry.
Since this is just a discussion draft, we will not speculate as to how such a clear revenue raiser was absent from the proposal and simply ask the co-chairs and members of deficit commission to make sure that the co-chair Alan Simpson truly “harpoons every whale in the [deficit] ocean,” as he claimed to have done.
We urge the commission to include a financial speculation tax in its final report to President Barack Obama.
Craig Mehall is policy counsel for Public Citizen.