Political Quotes

“I rise in support of H.R. 1370, the Export-Import Bank reauthorization bill, because I believe that the Export-Import Bank will have been made better as a result of amendments which were added to its authorization bill during its consideration of the Banking Committee. I am very pleased that the committee approved an amendment that directs the Export-Import Bank [Exim] to establish procedures to ensure that, when selecting firms to provide financial assistance, preference is given to any firm which has shown a commitment to reinvestment and job creation in the United States. Because the purpose of Exim is to support U.S. jobs through exports, the Bank should give preference to U.S. corporations which reinvest and support jobs in the United States, as opposed to corporations which are laying off American workers only to locate production and other facilities in countries which have less expensive, unprotected workforces. This preference provision gets at, I believe, the heart of the issue of the relationship between the U.S. Government, the taxpayers of this country and corporate America. A number of Federal programs are being criticized, inside and outside Congress, as corporate welfare and these programs are being targeted for spending cuts by people with widely different political philosophies. The Export-Import Bank is one of those programs.”