(Community Matters) I woke up thinking we should consider imposing a windfalls profit tax on financial institutions – who borrowed $10B or more from TARP – equal to 50% of profits prior to any bonuses. We should collect this until we recover all taxpayer monies outstanding as a result of TARP, Treasury guarantees and Fed lendings as a result of the Sept ’08 crisis – including those to bailout AIG and GM.
community matters
It's about community, entrepreneurs, politics, art . . and sometimes just silly fun . . . a slightly gay blog.Eugene Sepulveda
Love big West Texas skies, the unimpeded horizons of the coasts, Austin and my husband, the Rev. Dr. Steven Robert Tomlinson, with whom I’ve spent the last 24 years – nineteen years since we were married on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. Then, married again at St. James Episcopal Church in Austin, TX on June 27, 2015.
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Nah, government by retribution is not a good idea. These companies were playing by the rules (even if they helped write the rules) and we can’t punish them for that. Personally, I was much more upset last year when TARP passed than I am now that we are seeing the consequences.
It is very disappointing that this crisis has been wasted and the government has made no meaningful reforms. We don’t need windfall profits taxes so much as better and better-enforced rules and regulation. Is it “populism” (your word) when the EPA promulgates rules to control pollution? Or when OSHA mandates hard hats for construction workers? It’s not populism so much as good government. That’s what we need for the financial sector.
Longer term, I would hope we could get the federal government to adopt less regressive fiscal policy – more progressive income taxes, raising the capital gains tax, etc. That’s change I can believe in.