The Tea Party and right-wing conservatives in Congress have been responsible for blocking approval of the Export-Import Bank, when renewal was expected in July. Conservative ideologues deride the bank as being “corporate welfare.” The bank, financed by the federal government, provides low-cost loans to foreign buyers of American goods, as other countries do for their own exported products. Though companies like Boeing and GE benefit from these loans, so do small businesses, many of whom will lose sales because of this conservative partisan action. Thousands of jobs will be lost as well as exports are reduced. It can be compared to having American companies fighting those of other nations with one hand behind their backs to assuage home-grown partisans who do not care about the competitive environment American businesses have to deal with.
As of this month, Boeing had already lost a number of satellite sales to nations that had required the loans. General Electric also said in September that it will move five hundred jobs abroad from the U.S. because of Congress’s failure to reauthorize the bank. Jobs will go to Hungary, China, and France, all of whom will provide loans to buyers of products made in these countries. Other American companies may well follow GE’s lead and send jobs abroad unless the bank is reauthorized, but the conservative partisans in the House and Senate do not seem moved.
Blocking the renewal of the Export-Import Bank is an act of utter stupidity, not an elimination of “corporate welfare.” In the global competitive environment, if loans are provided by other countries to buyers of their products, the United States must do the same. Perhaps it is not truly free-market capitalism, but America must do whatever is necessary to remain competitive in the current marketplace. It is what it is. The conservative partisans who are holding up the Export-Import Bank, do not seem to understand the way business is currently conducted in the world and are damaging American companies for the sake of ideological concepts. They want smaller government and fewer bureaucrats, but sometimes government is necessary to get business deals done.
Conservatives rail about there being too many politicians in government and the need for some common-sense businessmen to run the government properly. But here it is the conservative politicians who are ruining business for American companies. The American Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and the Business Roundtable with more than a hundred corporate CEOs have been exhorting Congress to pass the Export-Import Bank to help American businesses. These are groups that have supported the Republican Party and its candidates seemingly forever. But it is the Democrats who are behind American businesses and the Export-Import Bank and not the Republicans.
The Bank’s opponents have been labeled “economically illiterate” by John Engler, the Business Roundtable president and a former Republican governor of Michigan. The anti-government populism against the Bank has been led by Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Jeb Hensarling, both of Texas. Yet Texas benefits more from the Export-Import Bank than any other state, with 3700 transactions in the last year and 164,000 jobs dependent on the Bank.
In reality, the Republican Party has been hijacked by anti-government conservative populists backed by the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, and Americans for Prosperity financed by the Koch Brothers. They all support the principles of free-market capitalism, refusing to recognize the facts on the ground that will hurt Americans and American companies if their blocking of the Export-Import Bank is allowed to stand. Will rational Republicans in the House fight to overcome the staunch opposition of the Tea Party and far-right conservatives and reauthorize the Bank together with the Democrats? It remains to be seen.
Resurrecting Democracy
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020