Open thread for night owls: Vermonters fail on public bank, but get millions in local investment ::posted Sat, 10 Jan 2015 04:00:06 +0000:: ift.tt/1x6nZua rss@dailykos (Meteor Blades) Montpelier, Vermont At Yes! magazine, Alexis Goldstein writes Vermonters Lobby for Public Bank—And Win Millions for Local Investment Instead. An excerpt: Right before 2014 came to a close, Wall Street won an enormous victory in the year-end spending bill. The so-called “CRomnibus” bill, which included language written by Citigroup lobbyists, gutted a key piece of Wall Street reform meant to prevent future bailouts of big banks with taxpayer money. This win came after the financial industry spent years chipping away at the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which passed in 2010. Wall Street lobbyists gained little victories along the way, but never stopped asking for more. By making bold and ongoing asks, Wall Street was able to win, even when lawmakers sought a compromise. There’s another group of Americans, however, with a different agenda for the future of banking—people who are also pushing hard for policy change. They’re advocates of public banking, and they want to see new banks created that would be owned and operated by the government, usually at the state or city level. (This would greatly increase the amount of investment capital available for small business development, local infrastructure, and affordable public transportation, none of which are much favored by private banks seeking a high return on investment.) Gwendolyn Hallsmith is one of those advocates. She’s currently the executive director of the Public Banking Institute, but she worked previously as a public servant in Montpelier, Vermont, where she resides with her husband and son, and ran for mayor in 2014. Hallsmith also spent some time in divinity school, and you can hear it in her voice—which is soft but strong and deliberately paced. “Perhaps the only thing more dangerous than giving a politician the microphone is giving a former pastor the microphone,” Hallsmith joked at a recent forum on public banking. To Hallsmith, the main advantage of a public bank is lower-cost financing, which can enable the state to pay for things like building affordable housing, repairing infrastructure, and expanding educational opportunities. And each of these projects creates jobs. Public banks “allow cities, counties, and states to finance important public priorities without needing to rely on Wall Street and pay the hidden interest tax that Wall Street imposes on all our money,” Hallsmith said. The quest to achieve public banking at the state and local level has been a long slog. Until quite recently, you had to go back almost 100 years to find the last major victory: the founding of the bank of North Dakota, the only state-run public bank in the United States, which was established in 1919. But interest has been picking up around the country. Santa Fe, New Mexico, voted in October to conduct a study on the feasibility of a city-run public bank. And in December, the Seattle City Council’s finance committee hosted experts in public banking to explore the topic. But nowhere have the steps toward public banking been more successful than in the state of Vermont. There, Hallsmith and other advocates won a small victory against Wall Street through an effort so relentless and strategic that it would have made any banking lobbyist proud. They combined savvy organizing with data-driven reports and policy briefs to prove the benefits of a public bank—like avoiding fat interest payments to Wall Street banks—for the state’s economy. […] Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2014—Bitter Family Research Council head declares the Southern Poverty Law Center terrorists: In the history of American hate groups, has this ever worked? Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, in an email to supporters late last night decided to label the highly-respected Southern Poverty Law Center a terrorist organization. More accurately, he had a Twitter tantrum to that effect, once again proving Twitters primary value to the American discourse is as omnipresent outlet for supposedly respectable people to soil themselves in public. Before Twitter, you had to get yourself booked on teevee before making an ass of yourself—it required preparation, or at least getting dressed. Now Tony Perkins can demonstrate why people with higher political ambitions should avoid him without getting off the toilet. Perkins was once taken seriously, I remind you. He wasnt any less spiteful or crooked or nutty, of course, but having fewer public outlets to be seen on meant being seen less, which did wonders for nutty peoples ability to control their own public images. To this day hes part of a family values crowd that certain Republicans will still fall over themselves in their rush to be seen with, but Perkins, at least, seems keenly bitter over just how much his star power has diminished. Thats in large part due to watchdog efforts by the SPLC and other groups, and for that they deserve our thanks. Tweet of the Day Already sick of your shit, 2015.— @pourmecoffee On todays Kagro in the Morning show, We take a look back at the Republican Houses kick-off failure with their initial attempt at passing Dodd-Frank rollbacks. Ubers latest venue for its scofflaw schemes business expansions plans: Boise, ID. Confessions of a former TSA officer. Joan McCarter checked in after the holiday break, updating us on the GOPs desperate desire to kick people off insurance, and even ruin it for anyone who can afford to keep it when theyre done. And that shed gotten a little talking to from the mayor of Boise, too! We also talk KXL, and Ted Cruz vs. Mitch McConnell for true control of the Senate. High Impact Posts. Top Comments [Forwarded by the MyLeftBlogosphere news engine. Link to original post below:]
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 07:15:38 +0000
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