Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders sparred over the Export-Import Bank during the Democratic presidential debate Sunday.
“I’ll tell you what I say. Do you know what the other name it’s called buying more of the Export-Import Bank is? It’s called the bank of Boeing,” Sanders said on the debate stage in Flint, Mich.
The Vermont senator said Boeing gets 40 percent of Ex-Im funds and an additional 75 percent of the fund’s goes to large corporations. If the bank were to continue, he argued, at least 20 percent of the money should go to small businesses, not large corporations.
When asked if he was essentially agreeing with Ted Cruz in his views of the controversial bank, Sanders responded, “I don’t want to break the bad news. Democrats are not always right.”
On the campaign trail Sanders repeatedly condemns large corporations and corporate greed, and often criticizes Clinton for being too friendly to big business.
Clinton said she supports the bank as it keeps the United States competitive in the global economy. She argued that without the bank the United States would lose jobs and that “instead of exporting products we make here at home we would literally be exporting jobs.”
She also claimed that companies “all over” Michigan have been helped by the Export-Import Bank and the United States’ use of the bank is essential to their competiveness.
But Sanders didn’t buy the argument.
“Isn’t it tragic that these large multi-national corporations making billions of dollars a year are shutting down in America, going to China going to Mexico — oh absolutely they need a handout from the American middle class. I don’t think so!” he said.
