(H/T – Stephen Green)
The Hill reports that the AFL-CIO has extracted their price of making the Democratic Party a partially-owned subsidiary of them and is calling for a 0.1% tax on all stock transactions. That’s right; buy a stock, pay a tax. Sell a stock, even at a loss, pay a tax.
The stated reason, according to AFL-CIO policy director Thea Lee – “It would have two benefits, raise a lot of revenue and discourage speculative financial activity.” News flash #1 for Ms. Lee – it was “speculative financial activity” that got the various AFL-CIO pension funds to where they are. News flash #2 for Ms. Lee – that churn produced by “speculative financial activity” creates a lot of cash that is spent at the production end of the economic circle.
Stephen notes that we pay some of the highest taxes on winning stock plays on the planet. For those that held the sold stock less than a year, that profit is taxed at up to 35% (and soon to be 39.6% somewhere over 40%). Tax the losing plays as well, and almost nobody will want to invest in the stock market. Fewer people in the market equals lower stock prices, which equals lower pensions and less money available for expansion.
Hey,
When I started coming here I knew I knew steveegg but I couldn’t figure out from where.
I just hit the trackback and poof, here you are.
Herro.
Welcome to the party. I may not drink as much vodka as Stephen, but I’m close enough for blogging.
And this just in, Chivas Regal has lowered its flags to half staff for 30 days in memory of Ted “The Swimmer” Kennedy, whose death is projected to cause sales to decline by 20 percent.
[…] The Hill (via VodkaPundit via No Runny Eggs): The nation’s largest labor union and some allied Democrats are pushing a new tax that would hit […]