Prominent Dutch blogger Stän Veuger argues at The National Interest that while “private gains and socialized losses” are generally undesirable, they are salutary in the world of exports.
Dr. Veuger, my valued colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, weighs into our *intramural debate over the Export-Import Bank defending Franklin Roosevelt’s creation as “a federal-government program of at most negligible cost that helps” the businesses it subsidizes. That could also describe Solyndra-type loan guarantees, the ethanol mandate, the sugar program, eminent domain for corporate gain, oppressive occupational licensing programs, food-truck bans, light-bulb bans, taxi-protectionist legislation, and many of the worst forms of corporate welfare. Low direct cost to taxpayers and clear benefit to the politically favored are hardly compelling defenses of industrial policy.
