Political Quotes

“we had three extremely well-qualified people come before this body this week who were nominated to the Board of the Ex-Im Bank, the Export-Import Bank. It is an entity that most individuals across the country don't even know about. They don't even know what the Ex-Im Bank does. But it gets caught up in a lot of politics here. These extremely well-qualified people were confirmed, and they are now on their way to serve our Nation in that area. I had to vote against them, not because of who they are and their qualifications-- they are clearly qualified--but because of my own frustration that this body has not been willing to take on the most basic element of reform of the Ex-Im Bank. The charter of the Ex-Im Bank requires the Bank ``to seek to reach international agreement to reduce government subsidized export financing.'' That is in their charter. The problem is, that is not being fulfilled. There has been a push for a while to try to reform the Ex-Im Bank. That push to reform it has failed so far. My encouragement to the new quorum that is in the leadership role at the Ex-Im Bank is to push to fulfill their requirements to reduce government-subsidized export financing, not expand it, and to take the actions necessary to do that--not only with our Ex-Im structure but working with other countries to reduce theirs.…”