States are in trouble. Even after the CARES stimulus package, states and cities face serious budget crises and communities are struggling to survive, in the wake of mass unemployment, exploding costs, and plummeting tax revenues. Interest rates on municipal bonds have shot up, while interest rates for banks have dropped virtually to zero. Things will worsen as unemployment benefits are cut or reduced to millions, at the same time eviction freezes are ending. What can states and cities do? Form their own publicly-owned banks.

Public banks — banks owned by the public — have been shown to respond more rapidly, effectively and equitably to crises than privately-owned banks. According to Ellen Brown, Founder and Chair of the Public Banking Institute: 

Shock waves from one Wall Street scandal after another have completely disillusioned us with our banking system; yet we cannot do without banks. Nearly all money today is simply bank credit. Economies run on it, and it is created when banks make loans. The main flaw in the current model is that private profiteers have acquired control of the credit spigots. They can cut off the flow, direct it to their cronies, and manipulate it for personal gain at the expense of the producing economy. The benefits of bank credit can be maintained while eliminating these flaws, through a system of banks operated as public utilities, serving the public interest and returning their profits to the public.

Public banking is distinguished from private banking in that its mandate begins with the public’s interest. Privately-owned banks, by contrast, have shareholders who generally seek short-term profits as their highest priority. Public banks are able to reduce taxes within their jurisdictions, because their profits are returned to the general fund of the public entity. The costs of public projects undertaken by governmental bodies are also greatly reduced, because public banks do not need to charge interest to themselves. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of such projects, on average, by 50%. 

Connecticut State Representative Susan Johnson has been working to pass public bank legislation in Connecticut for years. According to Susan, “Given the complexity of our economy here and our unfortunate experience of the past 10 years, it is time for Connecticut to pick up where Congresswoman DeLauro and former Banking Commissioner Pitkin left off and create and empanel [a] task force … to determine whether a state-owned bank could help address issues created by the instability and lack of regulation affecting the private markets today, and improve our economy and the fortunes of the people of Connecticut.” [Testimony before the CT Banking Committee, March 2019]

In July 2020 a group of passionate volunteers formed Public Bank Connecticut to help shape the political will to make this exciting opportunity happen, hosting a virtual Town Hall on Public Banking called "Can Public Banks Rescue Connecticut?" You can watch this extremely informative and wide-ranging conversation HERE.

Also read this article from The Middletown Press about the public banking movement in Connecticut. 

Creating a public bank in Connecticut will save the public $billions, address at the deepest level the racial inequities which Black Lives Matter is revealing, and create opportunities for economic renewal and financial sovereignty which will remain impossible as long as states are beholden to Wall Street. Help us make this happen by signing this petition! Thank You!

For more information about the opportunities please visit the Public Banking Institute.