Municipal Finance
Our work on municipal finance is collected below
Zooming in on the Loop
By Tyler Suksawat & Scott Ferguson In previous writings, we advanced an inventive new model for municipal finance: what we call the Seattle Loop. By establishing a city-owned public bank, we propose, Seattle can not only expand public investment through municipal lending and provide residents with low-cost financial services; it can also purchase its own…
The Feasibility Loop: When the Market Has No Idea
By Will Beaman Proposals for public banking are typically met with a predictable set of feasibility concerns: whether sufficient capital can be assembled, whether deposits can be secured, and whether the institution can achieve the regulatory legitimacy required to begin operating. Once these terms are set, everything else follows. The public bank must prove itself…
The Seattle Loop: Reclaiming the Public Interest
By Tyler Suksawat & Scott Ferguson A palpable, but indecisive enthusiasm permeated a recent Seattle arts forum, revealing a city desperate for a future that no one quite knows how to build, let alone finance. Despite the proliferation of sticky notes with compelling schemes, as Amanda Manitach describes in The Stranger, the arts roundtable lacked…
How Cities Can Evaluate Public Investment Without Bond Markets
By Will Beaman A series of recent articles from Money on the Left has argued that cities can sell municipal bonds to their own public banks, reclaiming public finance from private bond markets and expanding their fiscal capacity in the process. The Seattle Loop develops this approach in a more specific direction. It proposes that…
Introducing: The Seattle Loop
We are thrilled to share a sneak peek at the Seattle Loop, a fiscal strategy for generating public money for urgent needs in and beyond the city of Seattle. The Strategy: By establishing a municipal bank, Seattle can purchase its own debt and “loop” the interest back to the city instead of to private creditors. In addition to providing residents…
Out of the Shadows: Public Banking for Municipal Finance
By Tyler Suksawat & Scott Ferguson Editor’s Note: The following essay, originally published on March 3, 2026, offers a foundational theoretical framework for what has since been concretized as The Seattle Loop. The Seattle Loop is a fiscal strategy that utilizes municipal banking to purchase city debt, “looping” interest payments back into public provisions like…
Reclaiming the Public Interest: Cities Should Sell Municipal Bonds to Their Own Public Banks
By Tyler Suksawat & Scott Ferguson Editor’s Note: The following essay, originally published on February 22, 2026, offers a foundational theoretical framework for what has since been concretized as The Seattle Loop. The Seattle Loop is a fiscal strategy that utilizes municipal banking to purchase city debt, “looping” interest payments back into public provisions like…
Beyond Loans: The Public Grant-Making Bank
By the Money on the Left Editorial Collective Public banking has been gaining traction for years, driven by a growing recognition that our current financial system often fails to serve the public good. The Bank of North Dakota has operated successfully for over a century, and states like New York have recently seen legislation proposed…
Democratic Public Finance
Billy Saas and Scott Ferguson are joined by Will Beaman to discuss Money on the Left’s framework for what we call “Democratic Public Finance” (DPF). According to this paradigm, money is public credit, a capacious tool for mobilizing everyone’s capacities to meet our needs and build a desirable future. DPF redefines politics as the process…
Democratic Public Finance: A Radical Vision for Mamdani’s New York City
Summary This document elaborates an emerging economic paradigm that is already latent in Zohran Mamdani’s plans and practices. The paradigm, which we call Democratic Public Finance (DPF), reframes money as an inexhaustible and malleable public institution. According to DPF, money is public credit, a capacious tool for mobilizing everyone’s capacities to meet our needs and…
The Case for Fiscal Insurgency
by Will Beaman A common refrain keeps surfacing among prominent journalists- and commentators-in-digital-exile on BlueSky. Commenting on the emergence of yet another shadowy centrist think tank, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie observes: “Trump’s numbers are tanking and there is a palpable desire in the electorate for a real alternative and yet the only money…
Why Credit’s Due: Reclaiming Pride in Boro
By Rob Hawkes and Robyn Ollett The summer of 2025, like the summer of 2024 before it, has been one of heightened tensions surrounding the issues of race and immigration in the UK. This year, Union Flags and St George’s Crosses have adorned innumerable lamp posts, motorway bridges, roundabouts, and zebra crossings – ostensibly as…
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