Dear Chair Powell:

I am writing to call on the Federal Reserve to offer state and local governments zero-cost loans. State and local governments across the country are in midst of a staggering revenue crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the economy and without any clarity about the future of the disease, we need urgent action and solutions to give our communities the resources we need to survive and thrive.

Our communities are facing unimaginable challenges and difficult choices. Without federal funding, our public officials will be forced to make deep cuts that will further exacerbate the crisis. The pandemic has upended our lives and made us more vulnerable than ever. Our Black, Latinx, and Indigenous neighbors and community members in particular have borne the brunt of casualties from COVID-19 and past austerity policies. Shredding an already fragile social safety net to balance the budget will only deepen the crises in our localities.

None of the stimulus bills that have passed have offered adequate relief for state and local governments. Any hope that new legislation would center the crisis of public budgets was dashed in September 2020. Meanwhile, public officials are struggling to balance the budget, service the debt, and keep our cities and states afloat while preparing for possible future waves of COVID-19. Currently, American taxpayers are collectively paying $160 billion to service our municipal debt. This is revenue that is being transferred from our communities to wealthy investors and banks on Wall Street.

That is why I am joining the Cancel Wall Street campaign in demanding that the Federal Reserve provide all states, territories, local governments, and government agencies access to long-term, zero-cost loans. This would allow our public officials to refinance all of our existing debt into new interest-free loans, and free up more than $160 billion a year to reinvest in community services. It would also enable them to take out new loans to pay for long-term capital projects to make our infrastructure more resilient without having to pay any fees or interest, dramatically reducing the
cost of future borrowing.

The Federal Reserve can and must do better by the American people. Your institution has a long history of making very low-interest loans very generous terms to banks and corporations in the private sector. It is time to extend that same generosity to American taxpayers.