Probably , if it is business as usual. I think it is a mistake however not to consider all aspects. My first reaction is "not another damn tax". We have an sec fee . I was surprised to learn how much that small fee raises. But it isn't spent all on the sec. A good part of it disappears into the government black hole to fund I don't know what? Now consider where Bernie's trade tax would go. To pay tuition . What is the ultimate consequence. Billions that would have gone to banks and ended up in the Caman islands or in the Hamptons would instead end up as consumer money. That could be very good for our economy. And there is an additional potential benefit of perhaps a few more folks getting a college education that might not have otherwise. I'm not so sure anymore that it is such a bad idea. But how do you restrain costs and keep the universities from gaming the system ? There has got to be some kind of cost control built in. How do the other industrialized counties control these costs? We should study the German system,
You like Sanders ideas, but don't like how he would pay for them? I guess that about summarizes people who like Socialism. Everyone wants someone else to be taxed. At the end of the day, you can't make college and health care "free" without taxing EVERYONE.
Okay. But how do you deal with the fact that high school is free, and that in the work force a high school diploma a few decades ago was equivalent to what a college degree is today? If you want the country's work force to be competitive on the world stage, you will have to treat them as well as the countries with whom you compete. Consider the long view. As for health care, everyone should have it. It is not even an issue for debate in civilized society.
yea, historically, seems that most social based taxes are dealt to the masses mostly, whereas upper level, specialized and well backed areas of private industry and professional endeavors escape with exemptions or exclusions. 'personal Investing', pension funds, even mutual funds would probably see lots more taxation in different forms... (index funds seem to be taking heat and I am not sure they would escape in their present form) professional trading, HFT, hedge trading, MMs, liquidity providers, private equity positions, venture capital positions would probably stay unchanged, although most ET types might want to wrap their trading into an LLC and separate it from their personal 1040 stuff this may all be true if Hillary got in as well though
I'm not even commenting on the validity of free education. I'm saying you always have to take the next leap and figure out how to pay for it. Clearly a FTT wouldn't raise even a fraction of the money needed. As for education funding, I would be in favor of further subsidization of CERTAIN educational paths or trades. Engineering, comp sci, health care related fields, vocational schools for the building trades. These things make our lives better with productivity. I am not however in favor of paying my hard earned money to support the social sciences, business/finance, arts, etc.
I am for reasonable infrastructure spending. The problem is that government tends to waste money on bureaucracy and are too politically correct to say that engineering is a more worthy field to support than music history. Also, you couldn't make it "Free" like Bernie is pushing. There has to be skin in the game for adults to pursue education.
British model has gone ahead of us by many years and shows how things might play out here in US. Like in the British model, there would be created a 'special region' such as Manhattan for private and corporate financial activities with special taxation, special regulation, special administration etc...which would allow business, trade and financial activities to continue as they should In Britain this special region is called the "City of London" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation Bernie's people have defined the City of London model here: http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2009/02/corporation-of-london-state-within.html even in this above somewhat skewed version of the city, they admit that the city provides half million high paying jobs within a square mile of land every socialist country has a similar example. In china its Hong Kong, in Russia it was Riga and Berlin, in the middle east it is Dubai, Germany its Frankfort
I once made a good living from daytrading. And if I had to I could probably still make some money watching the market all day long. Why the hell should the govt shut down another avenue of work with taxes. This is another example of govt destroying liberty. If the govt wants to fund education... let them do another sequester and move that savings into education. The budget is absolutely massive. The sequester proved the govt is much larger than it needs to be. There is no excuse for another tax. Just reshape the budget.