Nurses call for ‘Robin Hood’ tax

It’s not all that often that the nursing industry and Wall Street are mentioned in the same news article, but National Nurses United (NNU) is looking to change that.

The group is leading a charge to call policymakers to institute a “Robin Hood” tax on Wall Street that would impose a 50 cent tax on every $100 of trades of stocks, bonds, dividends and other financial transactions. These transactions are not currently taxed, and the NNU believes the tax could generate $350 billion a year that would go to support social services, education and healthcare.

“We know the solution,” said Karen Higgins, who is a registered nurse and co-president of the NNU. “We are watching and seeing Wall Street throwing our money away as we see people suffer and die. It will not continue. We pay sales tax. It is time for Wall Street to start paying back what they owe the rest of the country and they need to pay a sales tax.”

If the U.S. instituted the tax on Wall Street, it would be one of more than a dozen countries around the world with such a tax. The U.S. itself had a financial transaction tax from 1914 to 1966.

Karen Higgins, RN, is a resident of Weymouth and a critical care nurse at Boston Medical Center, has been elected president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association.

 

 

Source:
MSNBC