The fight over the Ex-Im bank is something almost no one has heard of, and yet it’s sort of a pivotal ideological struggle of our time. Ex-Im basically exists to hand money to U.S. exporters, on the basis that hey, other countries hand money to their exporters, so we should too (you don’t want Chinese exporters getting more money than our exporters, do you? Well, do you?). It’s exactly the kind of obviously needless, wasteful, futile, corrupt government intervention libertarians generally oppose.
This perhaps most perfectly encapsulates the current political zeitgeist:
President Barack Obama was highly critical of the bank during his presidential candidacy,[8] but has since become a supporter of the program.[9]
Of course.
Naturally folks at Boeing think handing the folks at Boeing billions of taxpayer dollars is a great and patriotic idea and have righteously sworn off donating money to the campaigns of any benighted, myopic, possibly America-hating politicians who oppose the notion of handing the folks at Boeing billions of taxpayer dollars, a breathtakingly propriety-free and refreshingly naked example of attempting to influence public policy to shamelessly enrich themselves.
Less totally self-interested proponents make a number of similarly hilarious claims such as that Ex-Im is “profitable” according to government accounting despite existing for the purpose of lending below market rates, which mostly demonstrates the futility of combining “government” and “accounting” in any meaningful phrase.
The ideology here is interesting because Democrats generally believe they are on the side of the little guy against powerful corporations. And yet…
Bank backers, including most Democrats and about half of Republicans, say they will try again this fall.
Democrats don the usual fig leaf that these companies have employees (most do) who may benefit from handing the folks at Boeing billions of taxpayer dollars, but it’s not covering the junk of the support-contingent campaign donations they accept. The interesting question here is this: what do the Tea Party Republicans gain from killing Ex-Im?
And the answer is nothing, really. Their (non-exporting-company) constituents barely know it exists. Shutting down Ex-Im upsets people. They are being attacked for it by both parties. Killing Ex-Im is bad politics — but good principle.
Comments
3 responses to “Principle and Interest”
news flash for idiot tea baggers. the communist muslim born in kenya wants to be on the board of directors of as many multi national corporations as will pay him 1,000,000+ per annum. and they will pay him too!
Too defend Boeing, because they’re just down the road a bit, if for no other reason.
They make 1st rate airplanes. Give me a Boeing over an Airbus or Lockmart anytime.
Meanwhile, Airpus has some unfair advantages, the French and EU shovel subsidies into Airbus, and the French don’t give a week old baguette if they pay massive bribes to corrupt customers with that money.
I’d much rather see a relaxing on the bribe ban on American companies than shovel American taxpayers money at Boeing.
It’s a corrupt world, bribes and kickbacks are how business gets done in most of it. (watch liberal heads explode) Americans and American businesses are in fact, with exceptions, uniquely ethical.
MM, I agree. I lived in a SE Asian country for a while, and it was amazing how much could be done with a simple bribe… (same stuff would NEVER get done by going through the legalities without said bribe).
I think, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” becoming the norm for American companies overseas may have some downsides, but I suspect the increase in economic influence would offset those.