Some Democrats in Washington are seizing on the recent frenetic trading in GameStop Corp. to push the financial transaction tax long favored by progressives, setting up a battle with Wall Street firms that bitterly oppose the idea.
After a House hearing Thursday to examine the GameStop issue, Representative Maxine Waters, the California Democrat who chairs the committee, said she is considering such a tax, which came up several times during testimony.
Investment firms and stock exchanges are lining up lobbyists and public-relations firms in hopes of stopping the tax, which could decrease trading activity and lower earnings. They see it as harmful to the average American trying to save for retirement.
Robinhood Markets Inc., whose popular, commission-free trading app helped ignite the stock frenzy, this month registered its first in-house lobbyists and said the proposed tax is one of the issues they will tackle. At Thursday’s Financial Services Committee hearing, Robinhood Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said the tax would be a bad idea but wasn’t given a chance to explain why.
Exacting a tiny sum from every securities trade is a concept that liberal Democrats, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have pushed for years. They see it as a way to curb the kind of speculative betting that led to last month’s chaotic swings in the market and to fund Democratic priorities such as increased public-works spending.
A financial transaction tax hasn’t garnered support from some top Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who has been wary to back an idea targeting a key industry in his state. To become law, bills that include a financial transaction tax would likely need united support from Democratic lawmakers, making the effort an uphill climb.
The tax failed to gain steam a decade ago because of uncertainty over how it would affect the returns of retail investors and markets recovering from the financial crisis.
Wall Street lobbyists and Republican lawmakers also opposed the idea, often pointing out that some European countries that imposed transaction taxes later withdrew them. The tax mostly failed to raise the amounts proponents promised; it also drove securities trading and jobs to other countries.
Efforts to adopt an EU-wide levy also foundered, though some European Union member countries are again floating the tax as a way to raise funds to bolster economies hit by the pandemic.
One measure now gaining traction, by Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio, proposes a levy on trading firms of 10 cents for every $100 of securities traded, though other proposals have gone as low as 5 cents and as high as 50 cents.
In January, South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, threw his support behind the tax. Clyburn noted that the DeFazio proposal was projected to raise $777 billion over 10 years, money that could be used to fund spending on job-creation initiatives and health care.
“The speculation that we’ve seen in the market, not just around GameStop but in all of the casino that is Wall Street, has raised the attention,” said Susan Harley, a lobbyist and managing director of the Congress Watch division of Public Citizen, a progressive advocacy organization. “Those dollars are very attractive.”
Waters said she hadn’t come to a conclusion on whether to support a transactions tax. “I’m very interested and I do think it portends possibilities for revenue that may be desperately needed,” she said.
As a candidate in 2019, President Joe Biden expressed support for the tax but he never released a detailed proposal. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
During Thursday’s hearing, Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib sparred with Citadel founder Ken Griffin over the tax, which she framed as a way to address inequality. She called it “one way to ensure that this enormous wealth generated on Wall Street actually reaches the real economy.” Griffin argued that it “will injure Americans hoping to save for retirement.”