Jon Queally • CommonDreams.org • March 6, 2014
By a more than three-to-one margin on Tuesday, communities voting on whether to support the creation of a public bank in Vermont approved the idea, calling for the state legislature to establish such a bank and urging passage of legislation designed to begin its implementation.
In a show of direct democracy that also exposed the citizenry’s desire for a more localized and responsible banking system, fifteen of nineteen towns passed the resolution during ‘Town Meeting Day’— an annual event in which voters choose local officials, approve municipal budgets, and make their voices heard on a number of measures put before local residents for approval.
The specific proposal under consideration, Senate Bill 204, would turn an existing agency, the Vermont Economic Development Authority, into a public bank that would accept deposits and issue loans for in-state projects. Currently, the only state in the U.S. to maintain a public state bank is North Dakota. However, since the financial downturn of 2008, other states have looked into replicating the North Dakota model as a way to buck Wall Street while taking more control of state and local finances.
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Public Banking 
We must be wary of TPP, which apparently has language which could do away with public banks, as they “threaten the earnings” of the big banks…self-admission of the fairness and effectiveness of public banking for “we the people”, as contained in the legally binding mission statement of the Bank of North Dakota which states that all profits must be used for new valid loans or be given back to the people of the state as tax refunds…wallstreet obviously doesn’t like that !