Wall Street User Fee Could Relieve 1/3 of Sequester Cuts[image: Print]<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/wall-street-user-fee-could-relieve-one-third-of-sequester-cuts/print>Written by Nicole Woo Tuesday, 12 November 2013 13:12 [image: AddThis]<http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=120&winname=addthis&pub=unknown&source=men-120&lng=en&s=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cepr.net%2Findex.php%2Fblogs%2Fcepr-blog%2Fwall-street-user-fee-could-relieve-one-third-of-sequester-cuts&title=Wall%20Street%20User%20Fee%20Could%20Relieve%201%2F3%20of%20Sequester%20Cuts&logo=&logobg=&logocolor=&ate=AT-unknown/-/-/52a611b968d405db/2&frommenu=1&uid=52a611b920a74585&ct=0&tt=0&captcha_provider=nucaptcha>
As the House-Senate conference committee prepares to meet to negotiate the 2014 budget on Wednesday<https://mninews.marketnews.com/index.php/us-hill-budget-talks-resume-next-wednesday-agenda-unclear?q=content/us-hill-budget-talks-resume-next-wednesday-agenda-unclear>, avoiding $109 billion in crude sequestration spending cuts seem to be a top priority.
Simply repealing sequestration would be good for the economy, as "lowering the budget deficit right now leads to slower growth<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/taking-aim-at-the-wrong-deficit> ", but the current political situation is demanding that the cuts be replaced with other savings or revenues.
Some experts think user fees are a promising potential area of agreement<http://www.msnbc.com/all/what-real-budget-deal-might-look>. When drivers buy gas, they pay a highway user fee that's incorporated into the price per gallon. When airline passengers buy plane tickets, they pay security and airport user fees. Last year, Republicans approved a bill increasing some FDA user fees, and President Obama's budget includes dozens of user fee options<http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/user-fees-alternative-tax-hikes-99335.html>.
An untapped source of user fees is financial trading. Currently, the Securities and Exchange Commission's annual budget of about $1.7 billion is funded by a fee of less than 2 cents per every $1000 of stock transactions<http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1365171514024#.UnwjYRAdHAU>. If that fee were raised to 30 cents per $1000, on a wider range of Wall Street trades, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that it would raise about $39 billion per year<http://www.harkin.senate.gov/press/release.cfm?i=339847> .
[image: Wall Street User Fee Could Relieve Over One-Third of 2014 Sequestration Spending Cuts] That's over one-third of the 2014 sequestration cuts. As an added bonus, a Wall Street fee would affect middle-class families less than many other user fees, as the vast majority of financial speculation is being done by extremely wealthy traders. While the options for a budget agreement seem to narrow, a workable idea like a Wall Street user fee deserves serious consideration.
-- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org