After GOP Shut Down Ex-Im Bank's Charter, Businesses 'Have Lost a Helping Hand in Exporting Their Products'

September 2, 2015
Blog Post
It's been over two months since Speaker Boehner and Congressional Republicans shut down the job-creating Export-Import Bank's charter – and businesses, the media and Americans continue highlighting the damage of the GOP's latest manufactured crisis:

It's been two months since Congress failed to re-authorize the Export-Import Bank, which is the official export credit agency of the United States.  As a result, thousands of small businesses around the country, including hundreds right here in Illinois, have lost a helping hand in exporting their products to other countries.

Despite…current examples of the need for helping U.S. exporters, and resultant jobs, Congress allowed the Export-Import Bank of the United States (commonly known as Ex-Im) to expire on June 30… within the House of Representatives, Ex-Im has languished in the House Financial Services Committee, of which two of Indiana's delegation (Luke Messer and Marlin Stutzman) are members.

…Ex-Im makes loans to foreign companies to buy American-made products. Indiana is the most manufacturing-intensive state. Therefore, revival of Ex-Im creates and preserves Indiana jobs.

On Sept. 1, 10 small businesses in and around North Carolina will lose a critical tool that enables them to export $4.65 million worth of U.S. goods and services around the world: insurance from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

Since Congress failed to reauthorize Ex-Im before its charter expired, these small businesses can no longer accept new export orders. They must turn away potential deals in the short term — meaning they lose out on establishing relationships with new customers for the long term.

Without Ex-Im, companies simply cannot access new markets. Slower export growth means fewer sales and fewer North Carolina jobs.

When Congress failed to reauthorize the bank's charter by June 30, the bank had to stop doing new business -- and that's bad news for Erie.

In Erie, the bank helps GE Transportation to finance international sales of locomotives. That financing also helps the local manufacturers that supply GE, as well as small businesses that export.

Jim Rutkowski Jr., general manager of Industrial Sales & Manufacturing, is concerned about the status of the Ex-Im Bank because 13 to 15 percent of his company's business involves building engine components for GE Transportation.

Congress must reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, an agency that has served Texas exports well, when it returns from summer recess.

Between 2007 and 2014, the bank helped 1,629 Texas exporters sell about $26 billion in goods; more than half of these were small businesses.

The kind of help Ex-Im has provided — loan guarantees, direct loans and other means to help U.S. firms sell overseas — is less corporate welfare than a leveling of the playing field.

Congress should reauthorize Ex-Im.

If you talk to a typical Ex-Im critic in Congress, you will discover that…they [don't] have a clear idea of how many small and medium-size companies in their congressional districts depend on Ex-Im to stay in business.

The GOP's extreme opposition to the Bank is costing jobs and opportunities for cities, businesses and Americans who want to see it renewed.