Skip to main content
Peter DeFazio is a passionate guy. The fourth district Congressman has strong feelings about a wide range of subjects, but nothing fires him up quite like the subject of Wall Street.
DeFazio's rhetoric and votes have have annoyed finance types for some time, but he really struck a nerve with his (so far unsuccessful) effort during the past couple of years to impose a tax on certain stock transactions in excess of $100,000 a year as a way of balancing the budget and targeting speculators.
His bill, the Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Act, is one of main reasons that in 2010, DeFazio came as close to losing his seat as he ever has.
His opponent was Art Robinson, a scientist from Cave Junction, who has some pretty radical views. Robinson's campaign was aided by the several hundred thousands of dollars spent on his behalf by a hedge fund billionaire who dislikes DeFazio's Wall Street ideas.
Robinson is again running against DeFazio (in a bizarre turn of events, Robinson's son ran against DeFazio in the Democratic primary) but the Springfield Congressman has not tempered his views.
In this clip from an interview we had with Defazio late last month, we asked about the appearance of J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon before the fawning Senate banking committee, the power of Wall Street and the culpability of his own Democratic party.
WWeek 2015