Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about the Cantwell- Johnson-Graham-Shelby amendment that is going to be voted on shortly in this series of votes we are going to be having, and to urge my colleagues to support this important amendment that would reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank for 4 years, until 2015. The current authorization is set to expire in May of this year, so it is very urgent we pass this authorization. It would increase capacity for the bank because there is demand. The Ex-Im Bank, people may know--or maybe not know--supplies credit stability to foreign purchases of U.S. product, where the purchaser has limited access to private sector capital due to political risk or instability or limited access to capital. It is something we have had since 1934. So this program has been a way for U.S. manufacturers, small businesses, a variety of U.S. companies, to make sure they get sales of their products in international markets. It has been an incredibly important tool. Somebody called it one of the most important toolboxes in U.S. economic capacity to help our economy. In 2011, the bank supported over $41 billion in U.S. exports from over 3,600 U.S. companies, and it has supported nearly 290,000 export- related jobs in America. So that is a very big impact. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the reauthorization of this program will help reduce the deficit by over $900 million over the next 5 years.…”