CHICAGO – Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis has begun a big push for a new financial transactions tax to bail Springfield and City Hall out of financial problems with pensions and unpaid obligations.

Monday, Lewis told a lunch gathering at the City Club of Chicago she calls her idea the “LaSalle Street Tax” requiring a dollar tax on both the buyer and seller of futures contracts and a two dollar tax on derivatives. Lewis says the taxes would raise up to $12 billion.

“The LaSalle Street Tax would be good tax policy for Illinois,” 890 WLS AM’s Bill Cameron reports Lewis told the audience. “The rate is very low compared to the value of the contract, the tax would fall primarily on high-income individuals and wealthy institutions and it taxes the financial sector that caused the financial crisis led to the great recession in the first place.”

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK