Lisa McCormick says 2 NJ financial firms sharing in federal investment

Progressive Democratic activist Lisa McCormick said two New Jersey financial firms are receiving federal investments that are intended to create a more equitable economy.

McCormick said First Bergen Federal Credit Union in Hackensack and New Millennium Bank in Fort Lee are among the 186 community financial institutions that will share more than $8.7 billion in investments through the Emergency Capital Investment Program (ECIP) to increase lending to small and minority-owned businesses, and low- and moderate-income consumers in underserved communities.

ECIP enables Treasury to make direct investments in banks, credit unions and holding companies that are designated as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) or a Minority Depository Institution (MDI).

First Bergen Federal Credit Union is designated as a CDFI while New Millennium Bank is an MDI.

“Each business financed, each job created, and each home built represents a critical step in the transformation of a life, a family, and a community,” said McCormick, who has championed a return to Keynesian economics. “When government uses its vast resources to ‘prime the pump’ we get far better results than the brutal jungle of raw capitalism can produce on its own.”

McCormick cited the Tennessee Valley

Civilian Conservation Corp and the Works Progress Administration as examples of New Deal programs that lifted America out of the Great Depression.

“America must reverse Reaganomics and rebuild the American Dream with a set of fiscal and monetary policies that make our economy work for the many, not the few,” said McCormick. “If we reverse Reaganomics, America can restore liberty, prosperity and justice for all.”

“Reaganomics was like squandering the inheritance from our parents and grandparents, who overcame the Great Depression & won World War II to create the richest country on the planet,” said McCormick. “It is obvious that the New Deal worked well for most people during the 50 years that it made America the richest and most powerful nation on the planet. After 40 years of failed trickle-down economic policies, all we got is a rotting infrastructure, a vastly divided population and nearly $33 trillion in government debt.”

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen and Vice President Kamala Harris announced the program and listed the 186 community financial institutions at the 2021 Freedman’s Bank Forum.

“We know that the communities hurt most by COVID-19 have often been communities of color, and Treasury has implemented relief legislation with equity in mind,” said Yellen. “Today, we’re seeing one result of that effort: Treasury, through the Emergency Capital Investment Program, is injecting nearly $9 billion into Community Development Financial Institutions and Minority Depository Institutions.”

CDFIs and MDIs often make smaller loans and work with borrowers who face barriers in our economy and may require more time-intensive and personalized technical support.

ECIP investments are designed to support mission-motivated institutions to increase responsible investments in low- and moderate-income and minority communities that have disproportionately suffered from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Treasury also expects that recipients will multiply the impact of ECIP by leveraging additional capital from private and philanthropic sources to further expand lending to their communities.

“The economic bottom of the American population is much bigger than it once was,” said McCormick. “That was the intention of Reaganomics, which has been accomplished with cooperation from corporate-money-addicted establishment Democrats as well as the reckless Republicans who still do not see that tax cuts for the rich only reduce government revenues, create debt and diminish upward mobility for working families.”

“Over the past 40 years, this country has transferred a massive amount of wealth from working middle-class American families to the very richest people & greedy corporations,” said McCormick.

“Building a resilient economy will mean a cleaner & healthier future for our kids, more opportunity for all Americans, plus a better democracy because shared prosperity will reduce the corrosive influence of money in politics,” said McCormick. “I applaud the Biden administration for making more capital funding available for investments in communities that need it the most.”