2017 -- S 0263

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     STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

JANUARY SESSION, A.D. 2017

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S E N A T E   R E S O L U T I O N

RESPECTFULLY REQUESTING THAT THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS ADOPT "AN

AMERICAN ECONOMIC RECOVERY" PROGRAM

     Introduced By: Senators DiPalma, Metts, Ciccone, Ruggerio, and Lombardo

     Date Introduced: February 15, 2017

     Referred To: Senate Finance

     WHEREAS, There is an ongoing banking crisis gripping the United States and other

nations, typified by the massive fraud committed by Wells Fargo Bank, and the ongoing

malfeasance at JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, HSBC, Goldman Sachs and other major

banking entities. Too Big to Fail Banks (TBTF) have paid tens of billions of dollars in fines for

criminal activities against the American public; the same banks are still holding over $250 trillion

of derivative contracts on their books, the same derivatives that blew up the economy in 2008;

and

     WHEREAS, The financial crisis is being driven by a collapse of industry and

infrastructure. Over the past decade, Gross Domestic Product grew at the anemic rate of 1-2%

per year, and productivity rose at an even worse rate of .5% percent or less per year; and

     WHEREAS, A return to a durable industrial recovery will require adoption of a national

banking policy as was done by Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and

Franklin D. Roosevelt. This program of federal credit to industry, Cities and States built the

productive capability of our nation; now, therefore be it

     RESOLVED, That this Senate of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

hereby respectfully urges the Congress of the United States to immediately adopt "An American

Economic Recovery" program and do the following:

     1. Restore the provisions of the Glass Steagall Act in the United States, which aimed to

immediately restore the separation of investment and commercial banking. Two members of the

Rhode Island delegation to the United States Congress are co-sponsoring legislation, and the

Rhode Island State Senate was one of more than fifteen state legislatures to file Glass-Steagall

resolutions last spring. Glass-Steagall was also adopted on the platforms of both the Democratic

and Republican Parties this summer;

     2. Return to a national banking federal credit system, modeled on the principles of

Alexander Hamilton's First Bank of the United States, which built all the early infrastructure of

the nation. President Abraham Lincoln was a leading advocate for a new National Bank, and used

the Greenback policy to build the industrial might of the nation, and that same credit policy was

embodied in Franklin Roosevelt's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which financed the

gigantic New Deal infrastructure program. New Deal spending in Rhode Island was responsible

for schools and Post Offices as well as water projects in Cranston and Warren, and was directly

funded by offshoots of the RFC. A new National Bank can be immediately capitalized at $1 to 2

trillion and finance a similar national recovery;

     3. Use the federal credit system to build a modern network of high-speed rail, power

generating systems, water projects, and other programs. Rhode Island would benefit by a network

of high-speed rail lines from Boston to Washington D.C., and storm protection and port

development projects. The port facilities of the state will be major beneficiaries of National Bank

credit;

     4. Rebuild our space program, picking up where the Kennedy space program left off,

exploring the solar system and thus inspiring future generations. It would also launch massive

research into key scientific frontiers including nuclear fusion, which is the long-term solution to

our energy needs; and be it further

     RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to

transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to all members of the Rhode Island delegation to

Congress and to the President of the United States.

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