Steve Kagen To Tax Twice Your 401 K.

From The Green Bay Press. Are you not a part of Wall Street with your retirement accounts?

"Kagen supports large stock-transfer fee
Proposal would tax transactions more than $100,000
By LARRY BIVINS • Press-Gazette Washington Bureau lbivins@greenbaypressgazette.com • December 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen said Thursday that it's time for Wall Street to repay Americans whose tax dollars were used to bolster a financial industry on the verge of collapse.

Kagen, D-Appleton, joined five House Democrats and one Senate Democrat in introducing legislation that calls for a quarter of a cent tax on large stock transactions.

The lawmakers say the measure would generate about $150 billion a year. Half of that could be used for job creation. The other half would go toward debt reduction.

"We rescued Wall Street, and now it's time for Wall Street to return the favor," Kagen said at a press conference. "Wall Street must help to pay off our debts and generate the jobs we need to work our way back into prosperity."

The bill targets speculators, and the transfer fee would apply only to stock transactions worth more than $100,000. For example, the tax on a $200,000 stock transaction would be $500.

A two-hundredths of a percent tax would be assessed on derivatives, including futures, options, swaps and credit default swaps.

The measure, introduced on the day President Barack Obama was hosting a job creation summit, is unlikely to get the backing of the White House. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said at a Group of 20 meeting in Scotland earlier this month that the administration was "not prepared to support" such a tax.

And Republicans are certain to oppose any tax increase.

"Raising taxes on investment is never a good idea, but with unemployment at 10.2 percent and continued economic uncertainty, this proposal is economically dangerous," said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, who sits on the House Budget Committee.

Some business groups also are opposed.

Bill Welch, president and CEO of the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said his group "wouldn't find this a terribly attractive idea."

Welch asked why not provide tax incentives for employers who hire if job creation is the goal.

"The issue isn't creating ideas to raise taxes," Welch said. "It's finding more incentives for companies to invest to create more jobs."

Kagen's office pointed out that Congress enacted a 0.2 percent on all sales or transfers of stock in 1914. That fee was doubled to 0.4 percent in 1932 during the Great Depression. It was scrapped in 1966.

"There is $47 trillion of trading — tiny amounts of stock traded in fractions of a second — that is socially useless," Kagen said. The tax, he said, would "make certain that Wall Street participates in the rebuilding of America's economy.""
Kagen supports large stock-transfer fee | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette

Our 8th district congressman wants to tax your 401 K twice. What a GREAT idea! Kagen's office could only come up with a 1914 law that was scrapped in 1966. How much more of your money will you let Steve Kagen take away!