Robin Hood Tax for HIV/AIDS?

Robin Hood Tax campaign

What is a Robin Hood Tax you say? The Robin Hood Tax Campaign launched in June using high-profile celebrities, economists and hundreds of demonstrators mobilized in 15 cities across the nation to call for a small tax on Wall Street financial transactions.  What they want is that the money  created from this ‘tax’ would be used to fund national education, infrastructure and health care, including HIV/AIDS, according to a National Nurses United (NNU) statement.

The tax is estimated to raise hundreds of billions of dollars for domestic projects, and would also provide funds to address the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and climate change. PSA’s came from musicians Chris Martin (Coldplay) and Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) and actor Mark Ruffalo (The Avengers) explains how the tax would work.  The financial transaction tax has been endorsed by more than 1,000 leading economists, including Jeffery Sachs, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute.

Lets break it down: A less than half of 1% tax on Wall Street financial transactions would largely apply to the individuals and corporations trading in stocks, bonds, derivatives and currencies who have benefited the most during the U.S. economic recession. The tax wouldn’t be applied to the bank accounts, pensions or savings of the vast majority of the American people. In other words, it’s a tax for the people, not on the people.

HIV/AIDS advocacy group Health GAP and National Nurses United, the biggest nurses union in the United States, are among the many groups in the health care field to join the Robin Hood Tax Campaign coalition. Organizers believe the tax is not too complex to implement, since the United States had a financial transaction tax from 1914 until 1966 that benefited average Americans and helped grow the middle class. It sounds to good to be true and sure Wall Street & the powers that be wouldn’t allow it to happen.  But it is an intriguing idea that would generate income needed for services

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