No Surprise Ex-Im Served Big Business

Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy on the Export-Import Bank's admission that it counted companies owned by billionaires including Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim among the "small businesses" it serves:

For months, I have been beating the drum about the fact that Ex-Im has been concealing handouts to large corporations under the guise of “small business lending.” Contrary to Ex-Im’s claims, the bulk of its activities aren't about helping small businesses at all. Rather, the Bank prioritizes redistributing wealth to large domestic and foreign corporations.

Today, the Ex-Im Bank made our case for us. A Bank spokesman has confirmed that the outfit misled Americans about how much money was going to small businesses. Reuters broke the story.

There are three important points to keep in mind.

First, the Ex-Im Bank was recently reauthorized for nine months until its fate is again revisited this summer.

Second, Democrats have become some the biggest advocates of the Ex-Im Bank in the name of its benefits to small businesses. Whether it is because they do not look at the data or because they are eager to help big businesses, this story should give them pause.

Third, this is not the first time the Bank has been implicated by accusations of shady behavior. In the past year alone, it has been dogged by corruption probes, suspicious foreign deals, and plenty of praise by their good friends (and number one customers) at Boeing.

This is yet another reason to end this toxic, corrupt, corporatist institution once and for all when its charter expires in June. Good riddance.

Click here to read Dr. de Rugy's full commentary, or here for a collection of her work on Ex-Im.