[UPDATE: On Tuesday evening, 127 cowardly Republicans voted with all but one Democrat to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank until 2019. It remains to be seen whether Senate Republicans can stop this cronyist travesty.]
I’ll have more tomorrow on the “budget deal,” likely Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s . statement that the process used to reach that deal “stinks,” and his promise that things won’t work this way when he’s in charge.
For today, I want to point you, and particularly conservatives who are skeptical of Ryan, to his welcome and forceful statement against reauthorization of the cronyist organization known as the Ex-Im Bank. See Ryan’s statement below.
I would urge all Republicans to contact their members of Congress, especially Republican members, to urge them to keep Ex-Im dead. Sadly, a “discharge petition” has been launched by corporatist Republicans working with big-spending Democrats over the objections of some of the most prominent and respected members of the House, including Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling .. You may not be surprised to learn that John Boehner . supports Ex-Im; yet another positive contrast for Paul Ryan to make with the departing Speaker.
Any Republican who signed on to the discharge petition, and especially Rep. Stephen Fincher . of Tennessee, should face primary challenges from true fiscal conservatives, particularly if the district is safely Republican. Over at the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney reports that Fincher raises almost all of his campaign contributions from PACs, bringing in approximately nothing from the Tennesseans he is supposed to represent. Two days after moving to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank, Fincher deposited a $2,000 check from General Electric, a firm which benefits from the cronyist “bank.” Stephen Fincher represents the absolute worst in politicians, a man who is feathering his own nest at the expense of his district, his state, and the nation; his disgraceful self-characterization as the “conservative champion for reforming the Export-Import Bank” would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical.
For more intellectual ammunition against Ex-Im, I encourage you to read my friend Don Boudreaux here, here and here.
And now, Paul Ryan’s statement on Ex-Im:
Mr. Speaker, I want to express my strong disapproval for this bill for the Export-Import Bank.
This is a pretty profound debate we are having. It’s about what kind of economy we’re going to have. Are we going to reward good work or good connections?
I think there are plenty other ways to expand opportunity in this country, and corporate welfare is not one of them. The biggest beneficiaries of this bank, two-thirds of their money go to 10 companies. Forty percent goes to one company.
And this bank does cost money—just ask the Congressional Budget Office when they use real scorekeeping. Remember Fannie Mae? Remember their accounting? Remember when they told us they weren’t going to cost any money—until they did? And it cost us billions.“The other excuse that I just don’t buy is, ‘other countries do this, so should we.’ We shouldn’t acquire other countries’ bad habits. We should be leading by example. We should be exporting democratic capitalism, not crony capitalism.
There is this criticism by those against the free enterprise system who compare it to competition, like a sport. Where the critics of free enterprise say there’s a winner and there’s a loser, just like a boxing match or a football game. Well, that’s true when it comes to crony capitalism. That is the case when it comes to corporate welfare. Because in that case, the winner is the person with connections. It’s the company with power. It’s the company with clout.
The loser is the person who is out there working hard, playing by the rules, not knowing anybody, not going to Washington, hoping and thinking that the merit of their idea and the quality of their work is what will win the day. That’s what is rewarded under a free enterprise system.
Free enterprise is more about collaboration. It’s more about transactions of mutual benefit where everybody benefits, and the rising tide lifts all boats. Equality for all. Equal opportunity. That’s free enterprise. That’s small d, democratic capitalism. This thing is crony capitalism, and I urge it be rejected.
