Ed Royce: “There are no free lunches. As I said, this puts the American taxpayer on the hook. If we look at the countries that we…”

“There are no free lunches. As I said, this puts the American taxpayer on the hook. If we look at the countries that we are rating here, that we are insuring, some of them are rated as double F, double F by OPIC itself. There is no end in sight to OPIC's expansion because OPIC has a good racket, because there is market value to Uncle Sam's backing, and that means OPIC discourages private sector competition. The fact is that the private market in risk insurance will not reach its potential as long as OPIC is in business. Just read the recent J.P. Morgan report on OPIC. It does not make much of a case that private sector competitors are not being crowded out of the business. The J.P. Morgan report also says the demand for political risk insurance is growing. So what is our response here today? Not faith that the market will expand to serve this new demand, but instead some say, Let's expand OPIC and deter private interests from taking this business. There certainly are private alternatives to OPIC's latest and growing activity, and that is starting up investment funds for developing countries. Today there are hundreds of private developing country investment funds. Portfolio money is flooding into the developing world, all parts of the developing world. Over the last several years several funds have started up to invest in Africa, long thought to be out of bounds for investors. Look them up, they are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.”