A business leader enraged by House Republicans letting the Ex-Im bank
charter expire for the first time in 81 years said, "They really don't
have a clue what…
Democrats are not impressed with John
Boehner’s “leadership” as once again the Republican-misled House failed to
do even the most basic work, letting the 81-year-old institution of the
Export-Import Bank charter expire Tuesday evening. But even more telling
is the rage of the business community at Republicans, who charge that
they do not know what they are doing.
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office said in a
statement, “The job-creating Export-Import Bank’s charter expired at
midnight under Boehner’s watch for the first time since it was
created in 1934 during the Great Depression.”
#ExIm4Jobs charter expired @ midnight thanks to @HouseGOP's shutdown politics. Dysfunction hurts US jobs & small biz!
Pelosi’s office included quotes from various papers, some of which are stunning:
The Seattle Times stated: “Jobs will be lost. Companies will go out of business.
Boeing, Caterpillar and General Electric will lose
an important tool to level the international playing field (for every
major nation has its version of the Ex-Im Bank), but they will survive.
The same can’t be said for many of the 200 or so smaller companies
helped by the agency. Many will be entirely shut out of the export
markets vital to their survival.”
So much for being the party of jobs or business.
In an article titled “Export-Import Bank set for midnight expiration, wingnuts cheer demise”, Fox News
reported, “wingnuts cheered the demise of the federal
Export-Import Bank Tuesday and vowed to beat back efforts to revive it,
even as business leaders issued dire warnings that letting the agency
expire at midnight would hurt U.S. competitiveness globally.”
Under pressure from teabagger-backed wingnuts, Republican congressional leaders and presidential candidates have lined up against the bank, defying their traditional allies in the business community who support it.
They continued with a quote from Don Nelson, the
President of California-based ProGauge Technologies, on Republican House
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, “Truth be told, he has zero experience
or knowledge on the topic and yet he and other misguided congressmen
portray they’re experts on this topic and say the private sector can
take over.”
And the death shot, “They really don’t have a clue
what they’re doing or the damage they’re going to inflict on small
businesses in America by closing the Ex-Im bank.”
So much for the idea that the Republicans are the Cabal of small business.
Lest you think this was an accidental failure, nope.
It’s more of that teabagger dysfunction that Boehner let’s drive the
House. You see, wingnuts wanted this charter to expire because they see it as a “free market distortion”.
“This is a small step toward renewing a competitive free-market economy and arresting the rise of the progressive welfare state and the cronyism connected to it,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who had led the effort to end the bank. “Now the challenge for supporters of a competitive free-market economy is to make sure Ex-Im stays expired.”
The House and Senate are on break for the July 4th
holiday, so there will be no last minute cliff-hanger as Democrats find a
way to save the country from the awe-inspiring, shameless dysfunction
and destruction of the Republican cabal. Republican Mitch McConnell is trying to drum up ways to sneak it past the teabagger extremists who run his cabal, but with Heritage and others
pushing House Republicans over the cliff of reason, this path seems
dubious.
We
knew Republicans didn’t care about jobs for the 98%, so that’s not
news. Republicans have ceded being the cabal of fiscal responsibility
and the cabal of national security to Democrats, who have done better on
both fronts in modern times. Now it seems they are hell bent on ceding
“the cabal of business” to Democrats as well.
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