But for a promised vote on
reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, legislation granting trade promotion
authority to President Barack Obama to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership
might have failed. Or is it the other way around?
Ahead of Senate passage of trade
authority on May 22, Senate Democrats were again promising to filibuster the
bill — unless some additional demands were acceded to.
Heading into the debate, Democrats
managed to finagle trade adjustment assistance into the bill — a big labor
union payoff — plus additional, separate votes on currency manipulation and
other items.
And, to get to a final vote on trade
authority, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) — plus
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Sen. Chris
Coons (D-Del.), Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
— managed
to extract a promised vote later this session
on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
In the meantime, those who should
have known better, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — a stated opponent of Ex-Im
Bank — helped pave the way for its reauthorization by expediting the trade
bill’s passage.
For, once it was clear — as it was
on May 20 — that Ex-Im’s reauthorization hinged on passing trade authority,
opponents of the bank like Cruz should have withdrawn their support. But they
didn’t.
In
an op-ed for USA Today last year, Cruz wrote,
“The Export-Import Bank is big businesses’ big-government bank backed by U.S.
taxpayers. It sends huge amounts of assistance to foreign corporations, buyers,
and companies that are hostile to our economic and security interests, but can
afford armies of lobbyists to access easy financing backed by American
taxpayers.”
At the close of the op-ed, Cruz had
warned readers that, “Those siding with foreign corporations, lobbyists and
crony politicians will be on one side. Those fighting for the values and
interests of American workers will be on the other.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told
reporters recently, “I have long supported
ending funding for Ex-Im. I don’t believe taxpayer money should be used as
corporate welfare.” Rubio also voted to advance trade authority.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) campaigned
against the Ex-Im Bank, and he, too,
voted in favor of granting trade authority to Obama.
If Cruz, Rubio, and Tillis had just
voted to block the trade authority bill — which
only reached cloture with 61 votes —
that might have been enough to kill the Ex-Im Bank in the Senate since, per
Cantwell, no Ex-Im Bank, no trade authority.
Now, one might quibble that the
votes for Ex-Im’s reauthorization already existed in the Senate.
Yes, but not in the House.
And now the pressure will be put to
members of the House, many of whom do not support extending the Ex-Im Bank’s
charter, to bring reauthorization to the floor in exchange for passing trade
authority. That is the precedent that has been set in the Senate.
Meaning, Cantwell, Murray, Graham
and company have likely managed to set the House’s agenda for the next few
months. Trade adjustment assistance, the Ex-Im Bank — all to give Republicans
the votes they desperately wanted to pass trade authority for Obama.
Heck, Democrats might as well just
hold out for a few more sweeteners to be attached. At this rate, they will
manage to get another $1 trillion stimulus through Congress. And, yes, those
Republicans who helped get the trade bill passed will be to blame.
Robert
Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.
http://netrightdaily.com/2015/05/blame-ex-im-reauthorization-on-ted-cruz/
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