On one side of the rope, students, workers, a polar bear, a walrus and Robin Hood stood. On the other side, a series of fancily dressed Wall Street executives.  The tug-of-war was over a proposed half penny tax on Wall Street transactions designed to raise billions of dollars to pay for education, climate change mitigation and the improvement of public infrastructure. That was the scene Thursday when working family activists who are part of the U.S. Robin Hood Tax Campaign rallied at Hotel Palomar in Washington, D.C., where finance and environmental ministers of select developed countries met.

A press release for the event described the campaign's goal:

This demonstration will draw attention to the fact that trillions of dollars of public money have been spent to bail out Wall Street while government officials pay short shrift to untapped and extremely promising innovative sources of public money like a Robin Hood Tax. In doing so, officials risk putting corporate profits over the needs of climate-impacted people.

In a separate press release, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) announced Thursday that he was going to reintroduce the Inclusive Prosperty Act—a form of the tax the Robin Hood Tax Campaign supports—on April 17. Similar legislation, the Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax , was proposed by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and the European Union recently voted to allow 11 European governments to implement similar taxes.

On April 20 at noon, supporters of the various tax proposals will rally near the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters at Murrow Park in Washington, D.C., followed by a march to the White House and U.S. Treasury Department. More than 140 organizations are expected to participate, including labor unions, religious groups, health advocates, consumers, housing activists, environmentalists, small businesses and others.