Sam Gejdenson: “if the fact that there was a lobbyist in this town working on a bill was a reason to vote against it, then I guess…”

“if the fact that there was a lobbyist in this town working on a bill was a reason to vote against it, then I guess everybody is going to vote against the tax cut tomorrow because the reality is on the merits we cannot beat OPIC. It makes money for the Treasury, it pays its own way, and it has created in the range of a quarter of a million high paying jobs in America. Where OPIC is rightfully prohibited from participating in places like China, when an American company goes after a contract, it gets a German Government insurance program and has to use German subsidiaries to provide much of the working product. The American private sector that is in financial instruments of this nature supports OPIC. They are not for its closure. This is taking a great racehorse that has won race after race, tying up a leg or two and say, gee, it does not run so well any more. If we cut the money out of OPIC; it is its own money, it is not taxpayer money, it is money that is made in profit on its operations; we will end up with an agency that will not adequately be able to monitor its own operations. Kill it rather than vote for this amendment; $2.7 billion in reserves in the Treasury, $52 billion generated in exports, a quarter of a million jobs; if this is welfare, where is the welfare in this? This is a place where the private sector will not go, it is a place the private sector supports our Government's actions.”