Authorize the Export-Import Bank

Floor Speech

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Madam Speaker, ticktock, ticktock. The countdown has begun.

Beginning tomorrow, there are exactly--count them--30 legislative days left before the Export-Import Bank is gone--vanished, disappeared--and each day that we fail to address this vital institution for American jobs, we let the obstructionists win. We let this bipartisan, eight decade champion of American exports go away. The irony of it all is, as my dear friend from Texas, Congressman Green, once observed, if we didn't have an Export-Import Bank, we would all be scurrying around, trying to figure out how to invent it in order to compete with every other developed country in the world that has an export credit authority.

Ticktock. Ticktock.

American companies are, unfortunately, already hurting. It is happening now. We don't have to wait for May or June or July 1, which is the day the bank will disappear if we do not reauthorize it. I am speaking in the present tense. Export contracts are being lost now--today--as we speak. Production lines are slowing. Labor needs are being reevaluated. Let me be clear: American corporations and companies are already losing deals to our global competitors because of this pointless fight. It is hurting companies now.

American companies are being penalized because, yet again, unfortunately, Congress procrastinates; yet we have a bill to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. We have two bills with substantial, broad, deep, bipartisan support--250 Members out of 435, to put a fine point on it. There are 60 for Congressman Fincher of Tennessee's bill and 190 for Congresswoman Waters', Congresswoman Moore's, and my bill.

Again, every other developed nation on the face of the planet has an export credit authority, and most of them are larger as a percent of their gross domestic products than ours is. To allow it to expire is to engage in nothing short of--and this is not hyperbole--unilateral economic disarmament.

Ticktock. Ticktock.

Small businesses are the ones that will be hurt first. Now, I know a lot of the focus of debate about the Export-Import Bank is Boeing. Yes, Boeing will be hurt. That is for sure. Although, I enjoy reminding people that the Boeing Company assembles airplanes, and what they depend upon is the supply chain of 12,000 businesses and vendors--thousands of whom are, in fact, small businesses.

Nearly 90 percent of all of the Export-Import Bank's transactions are to provide loans or loan guarantees to small businesses. They are the backbone of our economy. Everybody knows it. Nearly one in three jobs created in the last decade was created by small businesses, and they will be hurt first, small businesses like STAC, Inc., in Sumner, Washington. It is a veteran-owned business that provides industrial tapes and adhesives and a host of other fasteners. They predict, as their owner told me personally, that they could hire 40 percent more staff as a consequence of their exports.

The truth of the matter is that there is a STAC in every congressional district in America--in every town, in every city, in every community, in every neighborhood--and they need and use the export credit agency of this Nation, the Export-Import Bank, just like the businesses of every other developed nation in the world.

The rest of the world is growing a middle class. We all know it. If we want to keep and expand ours, then we are going to have to engage in global trade with one of the tools known as the Export-Import Bank. We have to sell in to their growing middle class.

Counting tomorrow, 30 legislative days to go--ticktock, ticktock.

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