John Sununu, Republican former senator from New Hampshire, knocked his party-mates today for supporting subsidies for major manufacturers. The matter at hand: reauthorization and expansion of the Export-Import Bank, a government agency that uses loans and loan guarantees to subsidize U.S. exports.
Sununu makes this distinction in his Boston Globe op-ed:
I typically say that “pro-market” is not the same as “pro-business,” but we’re making the same point. Sununu points out that Ex-Im’s clientele (mostly Boeing) aren’t startups who can’t get private financing, and that government steering the flow of capital is less efficient than the market steering the flow of capital. But he also makes the same political point I made in a recent column. Sununu writes:
It’s really a great op-ed that makes many excellent points. Sununu sees Richard Lugar’s defeat in Indiana as evidence that the GOP base is still worked up about subsidies, even if the party’s politicians have moved past that hangup.
I also really like this prudential warning, about how picking winners and losers always plays into the Left’s hands in the long run:
In case you’re wondering, Sununu voted against Ex-Im reauthorization in the House in 2002, and it passed the Senate by voice vote when he was there in 2006.
