They don't care. They want you to "buy & hold" stocks and get yourself a real job.
You are mistaking if you think they want your business. Quite the contrary.
Futures are extremely leveraged? Another good reason to hit them with the tax to curtail excessive leverage plaguing the Wall Street. Besides stocks can be leveraged as well: portfolio margin comes to mind.
The US market is pulled higher by the markets overseas. Maybe they are doing just fine now even though US might be in much worse shape than in 2007. Maybe US market is just following recovery in Europe and Asia.
Why would futures get a break? In what sense they are different from stocks? Position size that what counts for your PnL as well as for the government's PnL.
Why should the government be concerned with your leverage? They won't.
Ask yourself the question: What mumbai or bali or beslan have anything to do with the brilliant product of your brain activity?
jihad just moves from one part of the world to another.