It sits in an imposing building just across Lafayette Square from the White House. Yet the Export-Import Bank, which has been offering credit to foreign purchasers of U.S. goods for 80 years, could start shutting down operations within a matter of weeks.
"There's about a 50-50 chance," says Dan Ikenson, who directs a trade policy center at the Cato Institute.
The bank has become a prime target of the Tea Party movement and other conservatives who view it as practicing the worst kind of government interference in the marketplace.
"There is probably no better poster child of the Washington insider economy and corporate welfare than the Export-Import Bank," Jeb Hensarling, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation — itself among the groups pushing for the bank's demise.
With Hensarling and other top House Republican leaders ready to kill the bank, it may be difficult for the bank to get the votes it needs to stay in business.
Virginia Republican Eric Cantor, the recently ousted House majority leader, was a major backer of the bank. His successor, Kevin McCarthy of California, says it's time for the bank to go.
This has set up a confrontation between the Tea Party and the GOP's business backers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers are putting on a full-court press, calling on small business owners around the country to convince their members of Congress of the bank's continuing importance.
"The business community is pushing this very hard right now," says Christopher Wenk, senior director of international policy for the Chamber of Commerce. "What really matters is members of Congress hearing from their constituents."
What The Bank Does
Since 1934, the Export-Import Bank has been doling out loans and guarantees to foreign entities that want to buy American products. If a Russian car company wants to buy steel from the U.S., say, the bank might step in to help with credit when private lenders won't.
"Banks do not want to lend for Caterpillar to sell tractors to Nigeria," says Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which supports the Ex-Im Bank, as it's sometimes called. "You don't have to Google very much about Nigeria to know how unstable that country is."
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