House Republicans may not have cared when Boeing announced it would be forced to lay off hundreds of employees at a satellite factory in Southern California, but the consequences of killing the Export-Import Bank have now reached the heart of Texas.
General Electric has announced it's pulling out of Dallas, Texas in response to Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling's crusade against the Export-Import Bank.
General Electric has dropped Dallas from a list of prospective sites for a new corporate headquarters as punishment for some Texas lawmakers who oppose the bank, Bloomberg News recently reported. [...]
GE has stopped giving to a number of lawmakers who are opposed to Ex-Im, most notably: Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The same can be said for Boeing, which is the biggest direct beneficiary of Ex-Im.
Chairman Hensarling, who represents a slice of Dallas in Congress, is the leading opponent of the bank.
For their part, Hensarling and other local Republicans seem to be in a state of denial; responding to GE's decision by touting the benefits of 'doing business in Texas.' Local Democrats, however, are not exactly thrilled that they're losing thousands of jobs for virtually no reason.
The Export-Import Bank is not funded by taxpayer dollars; it's funded by the fees and interest payments it collects. Republican opposition to the bank is nigh inexplicable but, suffice to say, somewhere along the line they got it in their heads that the bank is some kind of big government boondoggle that only President Obummer could dream up.
The bank was founded in 1934 and officially recognized by Congress in 1945 but, for some reason, it became a problem in 2015. The bank finances loans for foreign companies that wish to purchase American exports.
The Export-Import Bank deals with foreign companies that private sector lenders consider to be too risky. Without the bank, these purchases will not take place.
Why do Republicans hate American exports?