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HJR 272 - Introduced - PDF
HJR272
192382-1
By Representatives Jackson and Chestnut
RFD: Rules
First Read: 01-MAR-18
192382-1:n:02/28/2018:KMS/bm LSA2018-1127
URGING CONGRESS TO ADOPT AN AMERICAN ECONOMIC
RECOVERY PROGRAM.
WHEREAS, the financial system in the United States
is now holding over $275 trillion of contract derivatives on
the books of the federally insured banks, according to the
Comptroller of the Currency, and these derivatives now
threaten a new financial disintegration like that of 2008; and
WHEREAS, the collapse of prices of the commodities
markets by 10-70 percent per commodity over the past year from
oil to copper to coffee, as measured in the Dow Jones and
Bloomberg Commodity Indices; (the price of oil alone has
fallen 70 percent) may trigger a new crisis in the financial
markets and the economy, just as the subprime mortgages
triggered the 2008 debacle; and
WHEREAS, a return to a durable economic recovery
will require the adoption of national credit and national
banking policies as done by Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy
Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight
Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy; this program of federal
credit to industry, states, and cities built the industry and
agriculture of our nation; and
WHEREAS, national credit, under this constitutional
program, can be made available for the creation of productive
jobs in infrastructure, manufacturing, and high technology
projects, thus creating mass employment for our now heavily
unemployed and underemployed workforce, especially young
people; now therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF ALABAMA BOTH
HOUSES THEREOF CONCURRING, That we hereby urge the United
States Congress to immediately adopt an "American Recovery"
program as follows:
(1) Restore the provisions of the Glass-Steagall
Act, and pass appropriate legislation in the U.S. House of
Representatives and in the U.S. Senate, which aim to
immediately restore the separation of investment and
commercial banking, as was initiated by Alabama Congressman
Henry Steagall in 1933. Glass-Steagall was law for 66 years
and prevented banking crises like the one experienced in 2008,
and opened the door for bank credit into the productive
economy.
(2) Return to a national banking and a federal
credit system, modeled on the principles of Alexander
Hamilton's First Bank of the United States which built all the
infrastructure of the nation for the first 40 years; it was
reinstituted as the Abraham Lincoln Greenback policy that
built everything from railroads to steel mills, including the
steel industry of Birmingham; Franklin Roosevelt's
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, that financed gigantic New
Deal infrastructure programs like the Tennessee Valley
Authority here in Alabama and the WWII mobilization program
that built nation-saving industries the industry that saved
the nation; and the John Kennedy Space Program that landed a
man on the moon and built the Marshall Space Flight Center
among other great accomplishments.
(3) Use the federal credit system to build a modern
network of high speed rail, power generating systems,
including nuclear power, water projects, such as those
urgently needed in the Southwest, and other critical
transportation, energy, and infrastructure programs.
(4) Launch an immediate rebuild of our space program
to explore the solar system and inspire future generations;
and a program to develop nuclear fusion, to finally solve the
energy needs of the nation and the planet.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That copies of this
resolution be provided to each member of the Alabama
Congressional Delegation and to the President of the United
States.