It was a smaller room than usual for the monthly “Conversations with Conservatives” event Wednesday. There were fewer attendees than normal, too, both among members and the audience. But among the many topics covered, members seemed united, even hopeful, on one item: the Export-Import Bank.
It’s no surprise that conservatives want to kill the bank, whose charter expires on June 30. But it was surprising just how confident members sounded that they would close the 81-year-old agency. Conservatives said they think the bank’s looming expiration is one deadline that Republican leaders won’t cave on.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan began the hourlong discussion by noting that the Republican committee chairmen with jurisdiction over Ex-Im have all come out against the export credit agency, which finances and insures foreign purchases of U.S. goods. Jordan noted that Majority Whip Steve Scalise and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy had expressed opposition to reauthorization, and that Republican presidential candidates have also said the bank’s charter should expire. He even pointed out that, to kill the bank, Congress just has to do nothing — “something Congress is usually pretty good at,” he said
“When are the stars going to line up better for that position than now?” Jordan asked.
The Ohio Republican repeatedly called Ex-Im, with so much opposition and so little support, today’s “Bridge to Nowhere,” referring to the long-proposed Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska, a federal project that has come to represent the worst of pork barrel politics.
“Are you kidding me?” he said. “It doesn’t get any easier than this. So if we can’t do that much, for goodness sake, what good are we?”
Rep. Raul Labrador certainly wasn’t jumping to the bank’s defense. But he was willing to let the process speak for itself.
The Idaho Republican said if an Ex-Im reauthorization bill went through the committees of jurisdiction — mainly the Financial Services Committee, where Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling, who is staunchly against the bank, is the chairman — and if the majority of the Republican conference agreed with reauthorization, then at least leaders would be going through the process. “But if our leadership goes around the committees, then I think there’s going to be a problem,” Labrador said.
Confidence that the bank will not be reauthorized is not universal among conservatives.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., suggested that companies the benefit from the bank could threaten to withhold campaign contributions for members voting to shut the bank down.
“That’s what worries me,” said Huelskamp, who at one point referred to the Export-Import Bank as “The Boeing Bank,” in reference to the large amount of Ex-Im money Boeing receives as the largest U.S. exporter.
Huelskamp noted that even he had received money from Boeing, and he reiterated that political contributions carried clout.
