The giant spending bill Congress plans to vote on this week isn’t just a spending bill. It’s loaded with tons of policy provisions including special favors for some well-connected companies and industries. Earlier today, I highlighted two provisions that seem to take a bite out of corporate welfare. Here are two that look like blatant cronyism.
1) The Blue Cross Provision.
Yuval Levin has the story of Section 102:
That ought to make it easier for Blue Cross to swallow the capping of the risk corridors.
2) The Overseas Private Investment Corporation
The bill reauthorizes for a year the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a federal agency that subsidizes U.S.-owned overseas businesses with taxpayer-backed financing. Want to set up a factory in a different country? OPIC can make it cheaper for you. For instance, a Brazilian granite business gets an OPIC subsidy, even though that hurts its U.S. competitors.
Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman wrote in 1996, “I cannot see any redeeming aspect in the existence of OPIC. … It is special interest legislation of the worst kind, legislation that makes the problem it is intended to deal with worse rather than better. … OPIC has no business existing.”
