The House Tuesday approved the reauthorization of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, with a majority of Republicans joining almost all Democrats to demonstrate a broad bipartisan coalition to revive the export-finance agency.
The measure passed 313-118.
More than half of the House’s 247 Republicans—127 in all—voted to renew the bank’s charter.
They can't even shutdown this crony operation in the face of serious opposition.
As WSJ reports:
Tuesday’s vote showed that an aggressive campaign by conservative critics to close the bank had done little over the last three years to turn GOP lawmakers away from supporting the bank. The vote marked a big victory for business groups that had fought to secure its revival...
Opponents say the Ex-Im Bank puts taxpayers at risk and allows the government to pick winners and losers. They have strongly criticized a lobbying effort by the bank’s biggest patrons, Boeing Co. and General Electric Co.
“They’re great companies….I just wonder why they have to receive taxpayer subsidies,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), who as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee led the campaign to close the bank.End the Fed? Not a chance in the current environment.
Also see: The Cronies: Half of all Export-Import Bank Benefits Go to 10 Companies
-RW
This smacks of some sort of lame attempt to distance "serious" "academic" Ausrian economics from the "dirty" business of the aspects of politics that encompass discussing and promoting ideology. In this case, the ideology of radical economic non-interventionism promoted by high profile personalities in the broader "liberty" movement. Sorry guys, the "academy" despises this ideology and, under the current socio-political status quo, will never treat its Austrian economic theories with anything resembling respect.
ReplyDeleteThat being the case, from a purely strategic perspective, in the pursuit of radical economic non-interventionism political outcomes(in the current day reality based world that means politics in the electoral and/or governance sense-sorry an-caps), no quarter should ever be given to ideological enemies or opponents. The proponents of Keynesianism and inflationism never do this. Why should we? Every attempt should be made to disparage opposing economic theories and shock and warn those who we would like to see embrace and further the cause of radical economic non-interventionism.
From my experience, regular, non-politically inclined, folks feel the inflation and without understanding why, know something is wrong. 5-7 % inflation may not be "hyper" in some academic sense but it's material to many households. So is "shrinkflation." It's a great opening for education, pointing out who benefits, and corroding faith in the system. There is momentum here that must be kept up.