State Bank Information

Home / State Bank Information

A Washington state bank—because your tax dollars should work for you, not Wall Street.

One of the most important policies I’ve worked on over the past several years is creating a sustainable public financing system—a publicly owned Washington state bank. Everyone focuses on revenue, but what we do with that revenue once it’s collected is just as, if not more, important. A state bank would ensure that our tax dollars go to work for us here in Washington, rather than paying unnecessary interest and fees to financial institutions on Wall Street. A state bank would use fundamental banking principles to leverage our financing capacity for public projects.

This year, Washington will pay about $3 billion in debt service to Wall Street lenders from which our state borrows money for our capital budget and infrastructure projects. Our local governments—cities, counties, and ports—pay even more. With a state bank, Washington could borrow the money from itself, pay it back to itself, and reinvest all tax dollars back into the state.

This would be a bank owned by “We, the People” rather than Wall Street shareholders.

Public banks are a public financing strategy used by most highly developed countries in the world to finance public infrastructure and public goods. Unfortunately, here in the United States, most states use commercial banks instead of public banks to finance this kind of work. This is a major public financing problem. But there is one exception in the United States—the Bank of North Dakota, which has successfully implemented its economic development and public support mission for more than 100 years. It continues to grow its assets and revenue every year, posting record growth and profits that belong to the people, not private shareholders. SB 5754, which I introduced in the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions, follows North Dakota’s example.

A publicly owned Washington state depository bank would operate like any other bank—it would hold money (our tax revenue) as deposits and use them to back loans that it makes for public benefit. Loans would be made to support the bank’s mission and for the infrastructure and program investments constituents need.

What does this mean in practice?

  • Lower-cost loans for infrastructure projects. Since it’s the state’s own bank, lenders could get better interest rates for infrastructure investments. That’s fiscally responsible and would make each tax dollar go further, which means better schools, more affordable housing, improved roads and highways, healthcare and long-term care facilities, high-speed rail, water, sewer, and irrigation systems, energy transmission lines, telecommunication connectivity, environmental interventions, and more.
  • Profits belong to Washingtonians, not Wall Street. Public bank profits would come back to the people of Washington, not bonuses for billionaires on Wall Street. When the state bank profits (the Bank of North Dakota had 16 consecutive years of record-breaking profits through 2020), the money belongs to the state, where it can be reinvested into budget priorities. This reduces taxation and potentially creates more jobs.

Why hasn’t this happened yet?

Big banks, bond brokers, and their lobbyists resist a state bank and want to ensure states borrow money from them instead of reinvesting tax dollars back into the state. Big money wields big power, usually behind the scenes, and disinformation campaigns raise false concerns about the format.

But fear of doing something different than what we’ve become comfortable with is just as big an obstacle as interest groups. What’s important to remember is that public banking is not a new concept but rather a well-proven one. We just need to garner up the gumption to do it because it is the smartest path forward for our state.

Our current public financing system is not sustainable. Our state cannot afford to maintain current infrastructure. We can see this all around us with inadequate, crumbling and increasingly expensive roads, bridges, housing supply, schools, and more. There is a smarter way forward.

The citizen movement to turn the current obsolete and oppressive financial system around is an uphill battle, but one that is possible. I’m committed to continuing this work and will keep educating my constituents and colleagues about how a state bank is both fiscally responsible and can better serve all Washingtonians.

I secured a proviso in the 2026 supplemental operating budget to create a public bank work group, which would write an implementation plan to stand up a publicly owned state depository bank. The group will have experts in the field, the director of the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, representatives from the treasurer’s, auditor’s, and insurance commissioner’s offices, and a member from both the House and Senate.

Here are a couple links to learn more about this idea: