American Businesses: We Could Not Work ‘Without the Export-Import Bank…Private Creditors' Could Not Help Us
From The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Pennsylvania):
Small business hangs on fate of Export-Import Bank
Some oil and gas projects being built in the Middle East and Asia could mean $100 million in revenue and dozens more jobs for Aquatech.
CEO Venkee Sharma is confident that the Canonsburg company could win that business to supply water purification equipment, but not without financial backing from U.S. Export-Import Bank.
"This has the potential to take us out of growth mode as a company," Sharma said, referring to the bank's uncertain future.
Aquatech is among 320 Pennsylvania companies that have turned to Ex-Im bank for loans, loan guarantees and insurance to sell their products overseas.
The bank is not unique; more than 80 other export credit agencies operate around the world.
"A lot of small-business owners have taken second mortgages on their house," said Linda Dempsey, vice president of international economic affairs for the National Association of Manufacturers, which supports reauthorizing the bank. "Ex-Im gives them the working capital loans to keep them going until they get paid."
It has supported $7 billion in exports from Pennsylvania companies since 2007, including 194 small businesses with fewer than 500 employees.
Aquatech, which has 250 employees in Western Pennsylvania and 600 worldwide, planned to seek additional Ex-Im backing later this year for projects to get started in the third or fourth quarter.
"If the charter has not been reauthorized then, at that point, we're sort of dead in the water with any type of expansion," Sharma said. "It will dampen our ability to take that business."
From South Bend Tribune (Indiana):
Without those services, Michigan City manufacturer Sullivan-Palatek would have no way of making foreign sales — the risk is too great for a small business, said Bruce McFee, the company's chairman and CEO.
"We could never work with these companies without the Export-Import Bank," McFee said. "Before we could not find a private creditor to help us with this."
The Billings Gazette Editorial (Montana):
If a federal agency boosts private U.S. business and makes money for U.S. taxpayers, why get rid of it?
That's the question we ask our members of Congress about the Export Import Bank.
…it's ludicrous that members would block a program that succeeds in its mission and earns a return for taxpayers.
Far-right Republicans deride the job-creating Bank as choosing ‘winners and losers,' but we all know American exporters and workers are the ‘winners' in this business. They say it's ‘corporate welfare,' but we all know it has helped American companies at zero cost to taxpayers. American businesses are feeling the impact of the GOP inaction and it's hurting our nation's economy. As NYT Columnist Joe Nocera said recently: "Why would anyone in their right mind want to put such a useful agency out of business?"