1. The Ex-Im Bank doesn’t create jobs.
- Government export finance assistance programs like Ex-Im “largely shift production among sectors within the economy rather than raise the overall level of employment in the economy.” - Government Accountability Office, “Export-Import Bank: Key Factors in Considering Ex-Im Bank Reauthorization”
- “[A]t best the Ex-Im Bank creates jobs in export industries by destroying jobs in non-export industries.” – Donald Bodreaux, Ph.D, Professor of Economics at George Mason University
- “By some estimates, the Bank’s loan guarantees have resulted in up to 7,500 lost U.S. carrier jobs, and up to $684 million of lost income for U.S. airline employees annually.” – Delta Airlines
2. The Ex-Im Bank doesn’t return money to the taxpayers.
- The Ex-Im Bank’s profits aren’t real. They are an accounting illusion. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that if the Bank followed more accurate accounting rules, its ledger would show a cost to taxpayers of $200 million/year, or $2 billion over 10 years. -- CBO Fair-Value Estimate
3. The Ex-Im Bank fails to help small businesses, even though it is required by law to do so.
- Congress requires that 20% of Ex-Im’s authorizations go to small businesses, but Ex-Im consistently fails to meet this statutory requirement. Ex-Im even admits this in its annual report (Page 45):
- Ex-Im’s subsidies go overwhelmingly to very large corporations like Boeing, GE and Caterpillar.
4. The Ex-Im Bank uses American taxpayers’ money to help foreign corporations, including businesses that are owned by the governments of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
- Of the 50 largest loans or guarantees approved by the Ex-Im Bank since FY2007, 46% of the loans have gone to state-owned companies or to a joint-venture that includes a state-owned company.
5. The Ex-Im Bank financed only 1.6% of total U.S. exports in 2013.
- That’s less than 0.18 percent of the total U.S. economy.