Quote from tomdavis:
As you said, there's very little support for a transactions tax in the US. A study commissioned by Bloomberg a couple of years ago said a financial transactions tax would cost New York City over 100,000 jobs and another 30,000 jobs would be lost in Chicago. Can you picture the Senators from NY or IL supporting this? Within 30 days after such a tax was passed, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange would be the Singapore Mercantile Exchange. The NYSE would be out of Manhattan by sunset. Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia and probably even the Swiss would offer to help them pack their bags and move into new digs-- far away from New York city.
In Europe, the FTT has a slightly better chance, but not by much. The UK has already said "no." A Eurozone transactions tax without the UK is almost impossible. Sweden, the Netherlands, Malta, and Denmark have all said "no" unless it's a global tax. The Czech Republic, Poland and Ireland have said no to the tax unless the UK is fully on board.
If you look at other countries around the world: the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and others have all said "no" to this tax. Some have qualified their answer by saying they would go along with the tax if it's implemented world-wide. But what are the chances of a world-wide tax when all the major financial centers have said they're not going to put their heads on the chopping block for a tax that will cost them tens of thousands of jobs and billions in income and capital gains tax revenue?