2020 -- S 2359 | |
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LC004134 | |
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STATE OF RHODE ISLAND | |
IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY | |
JANUARY SESSION, A.D. 2020 | |
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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 | |
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Introduced By: Senators DiPalma, Miller, Metts, Euer, and Ciccone | |
Date Introduced: February 13, 2020 | |
Referred To: Senate Commerce | |
1 | WHEREAS, There is an ongoing banking crisis gripping the United States and other |
2 | nations, typified by the massive fraud committed by Wells Fargo Bank, and the malfeasance at JP |
3 | Morgan Chase, Bank of America, HSBC, Goldman Sachs and other major banking entities. Too |
4 | Big to Fail Banks (TBTF) have paid tens of billions of dollars in fines for criminal activities |
5 | against the American public; the same banks were still holding $222 trillion of derivative |
6 | contracts on their books as of 2017, the same derivatives that blew up the economy in 2008; and |
7 | WHEREAS, The financial crisis is driven by a collapse of industry and infrastructure. |
8 | From 2007 through 2018, Gross Domestic Product grew at the anemic rate of 1-2.9 percent per |
9 | year, and productivity rose at an even worse rate of .5 percent or less per year; and |
10 | WHEREAS, A return to a durable industrial recovery will require adoption of a national |
11 | banking policy as was done by Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and |
12 | Franklin D. Roosevelt. This program of federal credit to industry, Cities and States built the |
13 | productive capability of our nation; now, therefore be it |
14 | RESOLVED, That this Senate of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations |
15 | hereby respectfully urges the Congress of the United States to immediately adopt "An American |
16 | Economic Recovery" program and do the following: |
17 | 1. Restore the provisions of the Glass Steagall Act in the United States, which aimed to |
18 | immediately restore the separation of investment and commercial banking. Two members of the |
19 | Rhode Island delegation to the United States Congress cosponsored legislation, and the Rhode |
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1 | Island State Senate was one of more than fifteen state legislatures to file Glass-Steagall |
2 | resolutions in 2016. Glass-Steagall has also been previously adopted on the platforms of both the |
3 | Democratic and Republican Parties; |
4 | 2. Return to a national banking federal credit system, modeled on the principles of |
5 | Alexander Hamilton's First Bank of the United States, which built all the early infrastructure of |
6 | the nation. President Abraham Lincoln was a leading advocate for a new National Bank, and used |
7 | the Greenback policy to build the industrial might of the nation, and that same credit policy was |
8 | embodied in Franklin Roosevelt's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which financed the |
9 | gigantic New Deal infrastructure program. New Deal spending in Rhode Island was responsible |
10 | for schools and Post Offices as well as water projects in Cranston and Warren, and was directly |
11 | funded by offshoots of the RFC. A new National Bank can be immediately capitalized at $1 to $2 |
12 | trillion and finance a similar national recovery; |
13 | 3. Use the federal credit system to build a modern network of high-speed rail, power |
14 | generating systems, water projects, and other programs. Rhode Island would benefit by a network |
15 | of high-speed rail lines from Boston to Washington D.C., and storm protection and port |
16 | development projects. The port facilities of the state will be major beneficiaries of National Bank |
17 | credit; |
18 | 4. Rebuild our space program, picking up where the Kennedy space program left off, |
19 | exploring the solar system and thus inspiring future generations. It would also launch massive |
20 | research into key scientific frontiers including nuclear fusion, which is the long-term solution to |
21 | our energy needs; and be it further |
22 | RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to |
23 | transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to all members of the Rhode Island delegation to |
24 | Congress and to the President of the United States. |
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