Sanders and Barbara Lee introduce the Inclusive Prosperity Act

Along with Sen Gillibrand and a dozen House Democrats

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The legislation imposes a tax of a fraction of a percent on the trades of stocks, bonds, and derivatives. This tax on Wall Street speculation, also known as a financial transaction tax, is estimated to generate up to $2.4 trillion in public revenue from wealthy investors over 10 years. An added benefit of the proposed tax is deterring the high-frequency trading that increases the instability of the financial sector and produces no economic value


While the top 23 banks in America received over $20 billion in tax breaks last year as a result of the Trump tax plan, hundreds of thousands of young people are unable to go to college because they can’t afford it, 34 million Americans have no health insurance, one out of five Americans can’t afford to buy the medicine prescribed by their doctors, over 40 million Americans are living in poverty, we have the highest childhood poverty rate in the developed world and life expectancy in the U.S. has gone down for the third year in a row,” said Sanders. “It is long past time for Congress to rein in the recklessness of Wall Street billionaires and build an economy that works for all Americans.”

“I am proud to introduce the House version of the Inclusive Prosperity because taxing Wall Street is not an extreme idea. The government already taxes everyday families for basic items like food, clothes, and housing. Wall Street gets away with no taxes, even when conducting high-risk financial transactions,” said Barbara Lee. “This has to stop. It's past time to make sure Wall Street pays their fair share so that we can provide funding for things that make us a better nation like jobs, housing, infrastructure, and college education.”

“More than a decade after Wall Street greed brought the American economy to its knees, big banks are still using greed as a business model and are still engaging in the reckless behavior that helped cause our economy to crash in the first place,” said Gillibrand. “We need to do everything we can to prevent another financial crisis. The Inclusive Prosperity Act is a bold step to clamp down on reckless and speculative trading. This legislation would put a price on risky Wall Street behavior and would bring much-needed revenue to Main Street, which never should have been handed over to bail out Wall Street. I urge all of my colleagues to fight with me to pass this bill as quickly as possible