Wall Street Trading Tax Gets Conservative Group’s Unlikely Tout

A conservative think tank is throwing its support behind proposals long associated with progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders: taxing stock trades and breaking up Wall Street investment banks.

Washington-based American Compass argues such measures are necessary to undo the economic damage caused by decades of excessive speculation and not enough sustainable investment. The plan was released Thursday by founder Oren Cass, a former Bain & Co. management consultant who worked on Republican Senator Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns.

“Investment means actually building something for the future that enhances our prosperity, but most of what we call investment isn’t that at all,” he said in an interview. Cass, 37, said he wants to lay “the groundwork for what a kind of post-Trump conservatism should look like.”