Instead, he contends, his plan would hire immediately.

Not so, countered Kristina Rasmussen of the Illinois Policy Institute.

"If that argument stood up, we would want to give all of our money to government so politicians and bureaucrats could spend it on our behalf and 'get the biggest bang for our buck,'" she said. "We don't do that for obvious reasons – government is notorious for directing money to politically expedient and inefficient causes.

"Chicago spends enormous amounts on those areas already, and we don't see much by way of improved outcomes.

Rasmussen said that both small and big businesses would hire directly and immediately "if the threat of increased taxes were not hanging over their heads."

"The best way to help the poor and disadvantaged is with sustainable private sector job growth – jobs that don't rely on more and more taxpayer cash to keep the payroll running," Rasmussen said.

She described the Stand Up Chicago plan as little more than the failed stimulus of 2009 and its repeat, the American Jobs Act, on a smaller scale.

"Leftists have been floating these ideas for years," Rasmussen said, "They seem simple enough on their face, but people understand those fees will be transferred to the consumer."

As with the Obama stimulus plans, they are paid for by taxing the affluent.

Proponents of the transaction fee argue 25 cents is an insignificant amount.

"I don't think the traders will even notice," said Baiman.

Designers of the plan say the fee amounts to .001 percent of the average contract.

But Sam Bowman, a policy analyst with the conservative London-based think tank the Adam Smith Institute, cautions that similar fees have led to significant reductions in trading.

He said that a similar fee was tried in Sweden with drastic results.

"Even a very small tax can wipe out the profitability of many of these trades, so they simply don't happen. The simplistic view that we can take out 0.001 percent of a market's volume in tax ignores the fact that even a tiny tax can stop many, many trades from taking place, so there's a lot less to tax. The best real world example of this is the Swedish experiment with a Tobin tax in the 1980s. Advocates of the tax predicted that it would raise approximately 1.5 billion kroner per year (approximately 330 million British pounds in present day figures) – it ended up raising just 50 million kroner per year (approximately 11 million British pounds in present day figures).

"Applying an apparently small tax to high volume, low-yield trading can make most of those trades unviable, so they don't happen. In Sweden, the 0.003 percent tax on five-year bonds cut trading volumes by 85 percent in the first week, and cut futures trading by a whopping 98 percent."

Proponents of the fee point out that a similar fee is already in place in Hong Kong exchanges, however the income tax is significantly less in Hong Kong, with marginal rates of 2, 7, 12 and 17 percent.

Baiman argues that Sweden has a smaller exchange with a unique dynamic. He pointed to the London exchange, but Bowman says in London they didn't institute a transaction fee but a stamp duty.

The European Union has floated the idea of a transaction fee, and it has faced similar resistance with German exchange operator Deutsche Börse telling the website Euroactiv, "The tax provides yet another incentive for transactions to move to jurisdictions where it is not applicable."

It's faced other criticism stateside. Speaking in front of the Futures Industry Association, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Chairman Terry Duffy said, "If you want to see the price of food rise, just throw on a transaction tax."

Rumors are already flying, though they are denied by all sides, that CME is being wooed by Indiana in the aftermath of a massive state income tax increase that was imposed by the Illinois legislature in its lame duck session.

Elizabeth Parisian, who helped Baiman put together the plan, acknowledged the possibility.

"We expect CME to threaten to leave because of this fee," she said. "The CME has a lovely history of threatening to move."

Parisian downplayed that possibility saying that taxes were one of many factors for CME, and the improved schools, health care and youth services of Chicago would make the city more attractive, more than making up for any negative ramifications of the tax.

CME employs 6,000. The exchanges anchor the city's financial district, known as the Loop. Parisian acknowledged that the group didn't run any study of the ramifications for Chicago of the CME group moving.

This isn't the first time this year that a transaction tax has been proposed for the city. Running for alderman in the 47th Ward, Matt Reichel, who ran for several national offices on the Green Party Ticket, proposed a similar tax to pay for a series of eco-friendly initiatives. Reichel got less than 5 percent of the vote in a four-person race.

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