House GOP 'Ineptitude' Destroying American Jobs
- Times Union Editorial (New York):
THE ACTION:
Congress refuses to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which costs taxpayers nothing.
THE REACTION:
At least one company votes with its feet, sending jobs overseas.
Here's the price tag of a Congress ruled by drown-government-in-the-bathtub ideologues who have no regard for facts: 500 American jobs, bound for France, Hungary and China. And that's probably just a downpayment on this ineptitude.
General Electric Company announced Tuesday that those jobs are headed overseas, largely because of Congress' failure to renew the charter for the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The more than 80-year-old agency has provided credit to foreign customers of U.S. companies large and small, helping domestic firms to do business in the global marketplace.
But conservatives determined to pare government to the bone targeted the bank in June, declaring it corporate welfare, and House Republicans refused to renew the bank's charter.
Talk about wrong targets.
But the reckless fealty to a small-government mantra, particularly in the House of Representatives, where tea party members hold great sway, leaves the bank in limbo.
Ex-Im Bank's Closure Is Sending Jobs Overseas, Hurting Small Firms
GE announced on Tuesday that it would move about 500 power turbine manufacturing jobs from South Carolina, New York and Maine to France, because the company can get export financing there. It can't get it here, because Congress shut down the Export-Import Bank.
The bank…[has]…been around for 81 years with nary a peep of controversy – until the Tea Party reared its head.
…there are countless small to medium-sized American companies that export and that say they would suffer if the Ex-Im Bank went away for good.
…Cruz and other Tea Party…blithely claim that [the Bank] offers a service that the private sector could offer. It's patently obvious, though, that private sector banks want no part of export financing.
Failure to act on Capitol Hill could mean job losses for Capital Region
…Anthony Martin…the pizza shop owner points out it's more than that. It could mean friends and their families have to move or lose their jobs.
Back at the pizza shop Anthony Martin says the rules aren't right and he's hoping Congress has an unexpected change of heart.
"A few people decide the fate of most people and it stinks," Martin said.
Fairfield-based General Electric's announcement Tuesday that it would offshore 500 jobs sent shock waves through Washington, which GE cited as the chief culprit because of the refusal of House Republicans to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.
At issue is resistance of Republican Tea Party supporters and libertarians who see the Export-Import Bank as an example of "crony capitalism,'' providing export financing to undeserving corporate giants.
The announcements reignited Republican infighting over the future of the 81-year-old export-credit agency…
Anti-government populists who deride the Ex-Im Bank, as it is informally called, as "corporate welfare" or "crony capitalism" so far have won in Congress. They have blocked reauthorization of the agency and forced it since June to stop acting as lender of last resort to the foreign buyers of U.S.-made products, from aircraft to car seats.
House Democrats are not giving up and continue calling on the GOP to reauthorize the job-creating Ex-Im Bank:
Roll Call – Democrats Ding Republicans Over GE Jobs and Export-Import Bank
The Hill – Dems press GOP leaders to quickly revive Ex-Im
Bangor Daily News (Maine) – Democrats hit Poliquin after GE threat to export 80 Maine jobs
Support for renewing the Bank's charter still represents a bipartisan majority of the House today – but Republicans' radical leadership wants to shut the Bank down completely. Their extreme ideology, according to POLITICO, has GOP Financial Services Committee staffers now saying that ‘500 jobs are a drop in the bucket.' But as the National Association of Manufacturers best said: "American jobs losses are a direct result of thefailure of" the so-called New American Congress that refuses to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank. [9/15]