Momentum is moving in a very different direction in liberal Vermont, and maybe in New York State. A month ago, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a law that will create a single-payer health care system, parallel to Canada’s.

The view from the hospital floor where nurses give care 24/7 is quite a distance from the halls of Congress, which is consumed with debates on debt ceilings.

Local nurses rallied today in support of a national call for a half-cent tax on stock and bond sales and other financial transactions. The new revenue would restore jobs and help fix the economy. Members of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United say the billions raised could ease financial strains on working families.

California’s nurses union stared down former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for trying to scale down the union’s political influence in 2005 and helped sabotage the gubernatorial campaign of another Republican, Meg Whitman, last year.

Nurses from across the United States rallied on Wall Street today, calling on the financial industry to pay their fair share of the costs of the economic crisis.

On Wednesday afternoon, June 22, a feisty group of 3,000 nurses, and their supporters from other unions and community groups, rallied at Federal Hall on Wall St. in New York City to confront the greedy banking industry and demand they pay tiny taxes on financial transactions to stop devastating budget cuts and finance health care for all.

Nurses who support a tax on Wall Street transactions to help fund public health held a demonstration Thursday morning in Ventura, waving signs with slogans like "Too big to fail and getting even bigger" in support of the national campaign.

Hundreds of nurses and their allies rallied on Wall Street Wednesday to remind the bankers they owe the nation, and the union movement is determined to collect.