If I Ran For President…

Part Six: Tax Wall Street for Main Street

Every day, millions of trades fly through Wall Street, completely tax-free. These transactions generate millions, sometimes billions of dollars, with zero effort. No labor. No production. Just money making more money, untouched by the IRS. Capitalism at its finest (worst). Meanwhile, actual workers, the people who create value, who keep this country running, have their wages taxed, their groceries taxed, even their Social Security taxed. It’s time to tax Wall Street. That’s why the Sixth point of the Platform for 2028 is:

TAX EVERY WALL STREET TRANSACTION: $0.05 per trade. Nonnegotiable.

Wall Street has spent decades rigging the system, turning the stock market into a casino where the house always wins. Market crashes aren’t regretful accidents to be avoided at all costs; they’re profit strategies. The ultra-rich cash out at the top, then buy everything back when the market craters, while ordinary Americans watch their 401(k)s get torched. The whole game is a scam, sold to workers as “investment” while billionaires make billions tax-free.

And let’s talk about 401(k)s. Corporations and Wall Street convinced an entire generation that ditching solid and guaranteed pensions for a gamble in the stock market was a smart idea. The rich turned retirements into casino chips, selling workers the fantasy that if they just played along, they’d hit the jackpot too. Now, when the market tanks, seniors are forced to sell off their stocks just to survive, while the rich swoop in and buy them up on the cheap, waiting for the next rise in value. And again, they do it tax-free. Over and over again.

But let’s go further: what even is the stock market? Could we live without it? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is, we’d have to restructure our entire economy. The stock market was supposed to help businesses grow by giving them access to investment without taking out loans, but does that sound like the stock market you know? Today, it’s a rigged game where executives chase stock prices instead of making good products, and where companies fire workers just to meet quarterly “expectations.”

Could we replace it? Absolutely. There are other ways to fund businesses that don’t involve a billionaire investor class gambling with everyone’s livelihoods. Public banks could fund business growth instead of Wall Street speculators. Companies could be owned by workers, not stockholders. Instead of gambling on stock prices, investors could get paid through direct profit-sharing; actual money, instead of numbers on a screen. What a concept, right? Instead of being shut out by being forced to buy their way in, companies could share that profit with those who put themselves on the line, rather than just their money. We could do this.

So why don’t we? Because the people who benefit from this scam use the money their money earns to own the system. They’ve convinced Americans that if the stock market tanks, the economy tanks, but that’s not true. The stock market could disappear tomorrow, and people would still go to work, pay bills, and keep the country running. The only ones who’d suffer are the ones who don’t actually do anything, but make enormous amounts of money doing it.

We may not be able to kill the stock market overnight, but we can sure as hell make it pay its dues. A $0.05 tax per trade won’t crash Wall Street, but it will finally make them chip in for the country they exploit. Maybe we tweak the details, say, the first 100 trades of the day get taxed once, and every trade after that gets hit with the full rate, but the bottom line is simple: Wall Street will pay.

Main Street has been subsidizing the rich for long enough. It’s time to even the odds.

And finally, a pledge: If you agree with this vision, consider upgrading your subscription to $5 a month. With your help, I can leave my current money making job, and my full time focus will be on popularizing these ideas through substack. I also have other ideas, like hosting a podcast centered on the process of trying to get politicians on said podcast to talk about these ideas, and then a separate podcast for the successes, maybe something like the Accountability Hour and then An Hour with Your Congressperson, and basically make YOU all my full time job. I’ll never put this substack behind a paywall, and I’ll limit these requests to these posts regarding the Platform. This is purely voluntary so no worries if you can’t help with money, I get it! Just share everywhere you can, and that will be enough! Because this isn’t just a dream- it’s a call to arms. If you’re tired of empty promises and billionaire bootlicking, put your money where your rage is. Five bucks a month to start a movement.

“It has to start somewhere, it has to start some time, what better place than HERE? What better time than NOW?”

-RATM