The need to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure might provide an opportunity to overcome big bank opposition to public banking. The high cost of building and fixing roads, bridges, airports and the like is only increased by the fees and interest payments charged by private banks and by bond issuers. Public banks could mitigate those costs.

In 1729, Benjamin Franklin gave credit to the colonial government of Pennsylvania for restoring prosperity by lending money beginning in 1723. Franklin later blamed Britain’s decision in 1764 to prohibit further lending and printing of paper currency by colonial governments as the chief cause of the Revolution because it rapidly caused widespread unemployment and poverty.