FLOOR STATEMENT: Introducing the Investing in Our Future Act

Thursday, 17 February 2011 14:18

For the Congressional Record
February 17, 2011

MR. STARK:  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Investing in Our Future Act.  This bill will discourage speculation in the financial markets, help us shrink the deficit, and help create a better world for future generations. 

Today is the Global Day of Action when hundreds of organizations are calling on the world’s governments to create financial transactions taxes to generate billions of dollars to help battle the problems that threaten the planet.

Our deficit is now a record $1.5 trillion. Most suggestions about how to reduce the deficit require cutting government programs and discretionary spending.  These kinds of cuts hurt American families and don’t stimulate our economy.  I propose that we instead shrink our deficit by looking to the currency market.   

Every day $4 trillion in currency is traded by the world’s largest financial institutions in the foreign exchange markets.  U.S. banks generated $7 billion in foreign exchange trading revenue in the first three quarters of 2010.  Much of this trading is purely speculative.  The banks attempt to outguess the market and in turn, destabilize the economy.

The Investing in Our Future Act will place a microtax of just 0.005 percent on the currency trades conducted on or on behalf of U.S. financial institutions.  This small tax would not be enough to disrupt the larger currency market but it could decrease speculative trades by as much as 14 percent.  

The billions generated by this tax will be divided between deficit reduction and causes that will help us build a better world.  Forty percent of revenues would be reserved for deficit reduction.

Ten percent of revenues will go into a Child Care Assistance Trust Fund.  These funds will be used for subsidized child care here in the United States, where six out of seven children who qualify for subsidized care do not receive it.   

Fifty percent of revenues will be evenly divided between the fight against climate change and world poverty.  The Global Change Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Trust Fund will receive 25 percent of all revenues.  Climate change destabilizes our world because it contributes to extreme weather, food shortages, and poverty.  The other 25 percent will go into a Multilateral Global Health Trust Fund.  This trust fund will support programs in poor countries that lack adequate medical infrastructure to treat and prevent diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDs and tuberculosis.

By contributing the revenues from this bill toward these causes, we will be investing in a stable and healthy future for our own country and others across the globe.  I urge my colleagues to support the Investing in Our Future Act.