PHILADELPHIA — Democrats on Monday night approved a party platform that includes an unprecedented celebration of a federal agency that exists mostly to subsidize large banks and large manufacturers, primarily Boeing.
The platform reads:
Democrats will defend the Export-Import Bank, which supports good-paying jobs across the country and allows American workers and manufacturers to compete on a level playing field.
Ex-Im, as the agency is known, subsidizes exports by extending taxpayer-backed financing to foreign companies and governments so they can buy goods made by U.S. companies. Generally, about 40 percent of Ex-Im financing subsidizes Boeing exports. General Electric and Caterpillar are two other major beneficiaries of Ex-Im. Banks like JP Morgan lobby for Ex-Im because they get taxpayer guarantees for their loans.
Republicans last year killed Ex-Im for five months, despite fierce lobbying by Boeing and other manufacturers. The sole Democrat in the U.S. to vote against the platform was Bernie Sanders.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
