There is a noteworthy update from the front lines of the fight to end the Export-Import bank. The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney writes:
We already had Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal, and John Kasich on the record against the Export-Import Bank. The only 2016 presidential candidate on the record supporting the agency, which subsidizes U.S. exports through taxpayer-backed financing to foreign companies, was Rick Perry.
Perry, when he was the Texas governor, had signed a letter with 28 other governors calling on Congress to reauthorize the agency. Chris Christie didn’t sign the letter.
That makes it a big deal that Perry has converted to the free-market position. In the Wall Street Journal tonight Perry writes:
We won’t have the moral credibility to reduce corporate taxes if we continue to subsidize corporate exports for corporations that already enjoy low effective tax rates, like General Electric and Boeing. We won’t have the moral credibility to reform government programs that benefit future retirees if we don’t first reform government programs that benefit big businesses like Caterpillar. We won’t be able to give businesses more regulatory latitude if we continue to operate a government bank with an emerging record of corporate corruption.
And that is why the time has come to end the Export-Import Bank.
Rick Perry’s change of heart is a bigger deal than it initially sounds, because it is evidence that the Export-Import bank has become a legitimate GOP presidential primary issue with real political implications.
An agency that most Americans had largely never heard of a mere few years ago, has become part of the small-government litmus test. This is more proof that if Americans continue to stay engaged and watch their government with vigilance, anything is possible.
