LA Nurses Join Nationwide Call To Tax Wall Street Profits

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — America's registered nurses have an answer to the nation's financial crisis: take some money from Wall Street.

KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports members of the National Nurses Union (NNU) are on the march for taxing Wall Street in order to heal the nation's economy.

Nearly 11,000 members and their supporters will be at over 60 congressional offices in 21 states -- including the local offices of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Congressman David Drier and Dana Rohrbacher.

Union officials said a nationwide call for a "transaction tax" on Wall Street trading firms would raise hundreds of billions of dollars that could be spent on improving education, health care and job creation in the U.S.

"We have that group of people that come in, they don't have insurance, they're paying cash for their delivery, and they're going to think about whether or not they're going to have anasthesia," said Trish Andrews of the NNU.

While some proponents have suggested a model similar to the .5 percent tax used in the United Kingdom, critics are worried that any additional financial burdens could rattle the already-volatile stock market.