Category: In the Loop

In this episode, hosts Tyler Suksawat, Will Beaman, and Scott Ferguson sit down with Washington State Senator Bob Hasegawa to explore his nearly two-decade campaign to establish a public bank in Washington State, launched in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street crash.

The conversation situates Hasegawa’s tireless public banking advocacy within his broader political formation. Born to a Japanese American family that suffered forced incarceration by the U.S. government during World War II, Hasegawa went on to enter the trades and join the Teamsters during a historic turning point for organized labor. As a leader in the rank-and-file movement to democratize the union and eradicate systemic corruption, Hasegawa was elected to union leadership in the Teamsters’ first-ever democratic vote, only to subsequently witness a disappointing return to corruption enabled by the Clinton administration. This early crucible in rank-and-file organizing and institutional power profoundly shaped his career in the Washington State House and Senate, grounding his legislative focus on labor rights, racial justice, and public accountability.

Dedicating the core of the discussion to the mechanics and necessity of public finance, Hasegawa articulates why public banks are vital tools for democratizing money, keeping public revenues working for local communities, and serving as a countercyclical buffer during market downturns. In a fascinating historical turn, Hasegawa walks through the founding of the Bank of North Dakota over a century ago, revealing how the agrarian movement behind the bank actually drew inspiration from progressive public ownership projects underway in Seattle at the time. This historical connection links the century-old legacy of the Bank of North Dakota directly back to Washington State, demonstrating that the current movement for public banking in Washington is coming full circle to its original inspiration. Finally, Hasegawa frames public banking as a truly global movement, exploring how different public financial structures around the world—such as Germany’s municipal Sparkassen system—can learn from one another, cooperate, and move in international solidarity to build an equitable, democratically governed financial architecture.

Check out the Substack for the Washington State Public Banking Workgroup currently chaired by Senator Hasegawa.

See here for the 2026 SB 5754 Work Session and Public Testimony for Hasegawa’s public banking legislation. 

Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Original music by Josh Klinghoffer 

Building on the vision of Democratic Public Finance (DPF) introduced in our debut episode, hosts Will Beaman, Tyler Suksawat, and Scott Ferguson present a radical new proposal to expand sub-federal fiscal capacity: the Loop. 

For decades, local governments have been disciplined by Wall Street bond markets, forced into defensive austerity, while furnishing private creditors with hundreds of millions of dollars per year. The Loop breaks this poisonous cycle by authorizing a government-owned public bank to purchase municipal bonds directly from a state, county, or city. In turn, the bank can immediately deposit interest payments back into the government’s general fund, in effect, stopping the leak to Wall Street by establishing a distinctly public loop.

By internalizing debt service, the Loop transforms an extractive cost into a self-replenishing public fund, capturing interest payments to fund housing, transit, care infrastructure, and the arts. The result empowers cities to evaluate public investment based on real social and ecological capacity rather than bond market discipline. Drawing on our recent writings and coalition work around the Seattle Loop, our hosts explain how such daring innovations in DPF stand to reclaim municipal finance as a powerful instrument for democratic agency and collective care.

Related Reading & Resources

• Reclaiming the Public Interest: Cities Should Sell Municipal Bonds to Their Own Public Banks
• Out of the Shadows: Public Banking for Municipal Finance
• The Seattle Loop: Reclaiming the Public Interest
• Zooming In on the Loop
• How Cities Can Evaluate Public Investment Without Bond Markets

Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Original music by Josh Klinghoffer 

The Money on the Left Collective is proud to launch its new podcast series, In the Loop: Revolutionizing Public Finance, hosted by Scott Ferguson, Tyler Suksawat, and Will Beaman. In this debut episode, the hosts lay out a bold vision for Democratic Public Finance (DPF), a paradigm shift that rejects the defensive, austerity-driven mindset of “finding the money” and instead reclaims public finance as a problem of legal, social, and democratic design. By wresting control of public resources from Wall Street, shadow banking, and both neoliberal and authoritarian governance, DPF seeks to protect local communities from federal sabotage and end the false trade-offs that misrecognize collective capacities, while pitting public interests against one another. 

The episode culminates by introducing what we at MotL call “the Loop”—a generative fiscal framework that utilizes a city-owned public bank to internalize municipal debt, capture interest revenues that would otherwise leak to private creditors, and reinvest that wealth back into local infrastructure. Highlighting the ongoing successes and momentum of building a broad-based coalition around the Seattle Loop, the hosts demonstrate how diverse advocacy sectors—including labor, housing, and the arts—can be woven into a self-replenishing, mutually reinforcing network that transforms public finance into a powerful instrument for the people and the planet.

Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Original music by Josh Klinghoffer