Gov. Inslee fights for Export-Import Bank
Jul 16, 2014, 8:34 AM | Updated: 9:13 am
Washington relies on financing from the Export-Import Bank more than any other state. It secured $111 billion worth of financing for 183 Washington companies, including Boeing, over the last seven year. (AP Photo/File)
(AP Photo/File)
The Export-Import Bank is a financial institution you might not have ever heard of, but its existence helps support a huge segment of Washington’s economy. Some in Congress want to get rid of it. Washington Governor Jay Inslee is leading the charge to save it.
The Ex-Im bank helps foreign customers of U.S. companies secure financing to buy those U.S. products. It’s a huge player for Boeing. Fifteen percent of its sales last year were secured by the Ex-Im Bank. It accounted for 30 percent of foreign sales in 2012.
“It’s (foreign financing) that our competition at Airbus has,” Boeing’s vice president of marketing Randy Tinseth told KIRO Radio from the Farnborough Air Show outside London. “The Canadians have it. The Brazilians have it. If we don’t have that same ability to finance aircraft, not just for us but for all of the export business in the United States, it just puts us at a competitive disadvantage. All we’re asking for is a level playing field.”
Washington relies on this financing more than any other state. It secured $111 billion worth of financing for 183 Washington companies over the last seven years.
Inslee said the importance of keeping this bank can’t be underestimated. “Seventy to 80 percent of the products we make in our state are exported outside the United States so this is incredibly important,” he said.
The bank has been operating for about 80 years. It’s financing is reauthorized by Congress every few years without much of a thought, but this year some House Republicans have planted a flag on this issue.
They consider this subsidized financing as corporate welfare that doesn’t need to exist.
Governor Inslee, along with 30 other governors, signed a letter and sent it to Congress this week asking that bank be reauthorized.
“These jobs are too important to get hung up on the wreath of ideology,” Inslee said. “We’ve got to do common sense measures to protect the people that work to put meat on the table. Unfortunately, people have wanted to sacrifice jobs on the alter of ideology.”
Funding for the Ex-Im Bank runs out in September, but Gov. Inslee is hopeful. “I think we’ll win this battle, but we have to get it done earlier rather than later.”
Losing the bank, the governors argue, will cost thousands of jobs and force U.S. companies to lose out on billions of dollars worth of foreign sales.
