The Reason We Need a Financial Transactions Tax

Bruce Bartlett has a nice column showing both the explosion in the size of the financial sector and the evidence that it has become both a major drag on economic growth and generator of inequality over the last three decades. That would seem to be a pretty good argument for a financial transactions tax like the one they have had on stock trades in the UK for the last three centuries. Of course this sort of tax on the sector faces an uphill battle in Washington because, in addition to being a...