Alabama House Passes Bank Resolution
June 4, 2019—This spring Alabama became the third state where a memorial resolution in favor of a National Infrastructure Bank has been passed. The resolution, introduced by Rep. Thomas Jackson, was voted up in the legislature in early April. The resolution also calls for reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, FDR’s bill for separation of commercial and investment banking. Both South Carolina and Illinois legislatures have passed similar resolutions.
All the resolutions call for establishing a national bank on Hamiltonian principles, which would provide publicly backed credit in the order of $4 trillion dollars. The crying need for such investment has drawn support from both Democrats and Republicans; note that the South Carolina’s legislature is dominated by Republicans, and Illinois’ by Democrats. While Rep. Jackson is a longtime Democratic legislator, the Alabama lower house where he serves is dominated by Republicans.
HJR 60 urges “the Congress of the United States to support efforts to reinstate the separation of commercial and investment banking functions previously in effect under the Glass-Steagall Act and to support efforts to return to national banking policies to repair our nation’s infrastructure.”
Similar memorials are pending in more than a dozen other states.
The full text of the Alabama resolution can be found here. Rep. Marcy Kaptur has introduced legislation (HR 2176) to re-establish Glass-Steagall; a bill to create a National Infrastructure Bank is circulating in draft form.
Tags: Alabama, Glass-Steagall, National Infrastructure Bank, Thomas Jackson