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Senate confirms three new members to the Export-Import Bank dailysign.al/2PTaZuM via @LRacheldG @DailySignal
The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm three board members for the Export-Import Bank, reviving—over the objections of conservatives—a controversial federal agency that allows foreign countries to borrow taxpayer dollars.
“The Export-Import Bank is corporate welfare, giving taxpayer subsidies to some of the largest, most politically connected companies in the U.S. and around the world,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had set up votes this week on the three nominees for the Export-Import Bank’s board of directors. The five-member board has not been able to approve loans exceeding $10 million since 2015 because of three vacancies.
The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominations of Kimberly Reed as bank president and board chairman and Spencer Bachus and Judith DelZoppo Pryor as board members.
The votes were 79-17 for Reed, 72–22 for Bachus, and 77–19 for Pryor.
Conservatives in the House and Senate have struggled for years to reform or pull the plug on the 85-year-old bank.
Conservatives in the House and Senate have struggled for years to reform or pull the plug on the 85-year-old bank.
Several of Trump’s economic advisers, including Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow, supported reviving the bank because they see it as a “critical tool to help the U.S. compete with countries like China that have their own export financing arms,” Politico reported.
But Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed back on that position in a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor.
“Many Americans might be surprised to learn that some of their tax dollars are going directly to Chinese companies,” Lee said.
“Many Americans might be surprised to learn that some of their tax dollars are going directly to Chinese companies,” Lee said.
“And that some of those dollars even go to corporations owned by the Chinese government, like Chinese banks, Chinese development agencies, and Chinese microprocessor factories.”
The Export-Import Bank was founded in 1934 amid the Great Depression to help struggling exporters in the U.S. facilitate international trade, Lee noted, but the agency has become a disservice to Americans and the economy.
Diane Katz, a research fellow in regulatory policy at The Heritage Foundation who has written extensively on the bank, said in a recent commentary that it has aided only 2% of U.S. exports.
“Restoring full function to the Export-Import Bank would be just another case of Congress sacrificing taxpayers’ interest to benefit enormously profitable multinational corporations,” Katz told The Daily Signal, adding:...
...But the last thing we need from Congress is more cronyism—especially subsidies to benefit foreign governments such as China that threaten national security. U.S. exports have boomed without Ex-Im support.
