Another Tea Party Purge is Needed in House GOP Leadership

It looks like the Tea Party is going to have to make another purge. Republicans in the House of Representatives are complicit in keeping the status quo. The following report by CNSnews.com should give many a concerned citizen pause:

When Boehner became speaker on Jan. 5, 2011, the federal government was operating under a continuing resolution that had been passed on Dec. 21, 2010 by a lame-duck Congress. That CR expired on March 4, 2011.

On March 1, 2011, Boehner agreed to a new short-term spending deal with President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders to keep the government running past the March 4, 2011 expiration of the old CR. Since March 4, 2011, federal expenditures have been carried out under a series of CRs approved by both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate and signed into law by President Obama.

At the close of business on March 4, 2011, the total federal debt was $14,182,627,184,881.03, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt. At the close of business on May 31, 2012, it was 15,770,685,085,364.14. That is an increase of $1,588,057,900,483.11—in just 15 months

The House republicans had a chance to kill a New Deal dinosaur program that caters to a handful of special interest. The Export/Import Bank’s charter was up for renewal last month. The GOP leadership shoved it through without blinking an eye:

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) reached an agreement on the measure last week.

The bill will reach the House floor under suspension of the rules, which requires support of two-thirds of the House for passage.

There could still be some suspense in the outcome because Republicans are split on extending the bank's life. Meanwhile, Ex-Im has strong backing from big business, while it is opposed by fiscal conservative groups like the Club for Growth, Heritage Foundation and Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.

In the past, the bank has faced little resistance, but this time around, conservative Republicans have pressed their case that the bank represents a federal government overreach.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has publicly called for its approval.

This country can’t afford business as usual politics. It’s plain for all to see that the current Republican leadership has to go.

Source: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/debt-159t-under-gop-house-more-15-months-first-97-congresses-combined

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/01/4531634/ex-im-bank-approves-68-billion.html

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1007-other/226235-overnight-money-export-import-bank-reauthorization-hits-the-house-floor

The Export/Import Bank of the United States is the Godfather of New Deal Crony Capitalism

The Department of Energy has become the poster child of crony capitalism. But there is another agency operating under the radar, that’s been around since the New Deal era with a track record just as bad. And like its cousin Fannie Mae is quasi-governmental.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the Export/Import Bank via executive order in 1933; in 1945 Congress made it an independent agency. And like Fannie Mae, is a government sponsored entity that provides loan guarantees, direct loans, and insurance to those who couldn’t obtain one in the private sector. The purported goal is to assist foreign buyers and countries in the purchase and export of American goods.

The charter for the Export/Import Bank of the United States is subject to periodic renewal by Congress and is purportedly self-sustaining, but the House Appropriations Committee says differently:

Export and Investment Programs – The bill provides $266 million for export assistance programs, a reduction of $84 million from the request. The bill also includes $1.5 million over fiscal year 2011 for the Export-Import Bank Inspector General to provide robust oversight over the agency. The Trade and Development Agency – which promotes U.S. trade interests abroad – is level funded at $50 million, the same as last year

For a better perspective on the banks operations, I refer to Timothy P. Carney of the Washington Examiner:

Ex-Im is a posterboy for corporate welfare. Its mission is to transfer money from U.S. taxpayers, through foreign buyers, and ultimately into the pockets of American companies. While the agency touts its support for small business, a vast majority of its money goes to subsidize sales by the largest corporations in America.

The money from Ex-Im loans and loan guarantees — the agency’s biggest transactions, and the only kinds that are itemized in Ex-Im’s annual report — goes overwhelmingly to a handful of large corporations, including Halliburton, Bechtel, General Electric, Caterpillar and Westinghouse. But there’s a reason Ex-Im is known as "Boeing’s Bank."
In fiscal years 1998 through 2005, Ex-Im has issued $63.5 billion in loans and long-term guarantees. In those years, $33 billion of Ex-Im subsidies went to Boeing. That means that a majority — 52 percent — of Ex-Im’s money went to help just one company.

But that was under previous administrations. The Obama administration is now using the bank to invest in the development of natural resources in foreign countries like Brazil:

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

It looks like the Obama administration has changed the mission statement of the Export/Import Bank of the United States. And with their track record on loan guarantees, the American people will end up eating this Brazilian “investment” too.


Source: http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/378361#ixzz1a3TwXJin

http://appropriations.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=253692

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41829.pdf

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html