There’s a pretty easy way for Republicans to build a winning campaign message around opposing corporate-welfare programs: oppose them, and don’t revive any dead ones. Unfortunately, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell seems to think this is harder than it looks.
The Export-Import Bank — a corrupt, New Deal–era institution that mostly benefits massive American firms in little need of a boost from taxpayers — expired at the beginning of this month. But on Sunday, McConnell let it take one step back from the netherworld by allowing its reauthorization to be added to an unrelated, important highway-spending bill.
McConnell says he felt he had to allow a vote on the amendment reauthorizing Ex-Im, that it was not a special favor to bank supporters. But while the new majority leader has restored some procedures that Harry Reid had trashed, he has kept a tight grip on the chamber: He has not allowed one amendment like this one to pass that was not backed by the majority of Republican senators. Now was not the time to start.
The White House has insisted (while stopping short of a veto threat) that the highway bill include Ex-Im, but this is no excuse for McConnell’s behavior. He also refused to hold a vote on an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, an idea with overwhelming Republican support, presumably on the grounds that adding it could imperil the highway bill, a “must pass” measure. (Highway funding expires August 1.) But we should certainly not be adding to such a bill irrelevant amendments that have overwhelming Democratic support, either.
EDITORIAL: Kill the Ex-Im Bank
The good news: In order for the highway bill with the Ex-Im reauthorization to become law, the House still has to take it up, and lower-chamber majority leader Kevin McCarthy has said he won’t do so. He has left no room in the schedule before the House’s August recess for such a vote; instead, he says, the Senate should pass the House’s five-month highway spending bill.
Both the long-term and short-term options are unappealing: Neither makes reforms to a broken system of transportation funding (the “highway funding bill” doesn’t fund highways sensibly, and it funds a good deal else, too). Both are paid for with gimmicks. But because we would like to see sweeping changes — and deep cuts — to federal transportation spending, the short-term bill is preferable to authorizing six more years of dysfunction, and given the time crunch, there is no other choice.
RELATED: The Ex-Im Bank Is a Waste of Money
We respect McConnell’s commitment to allowing open debate in the Senate, but we would also like him to attend to the priorities of his party. Neither a long-term, ill-conceived highway bill nor a reauthorization of Ex-Im is a conservative priority, yet he has acted this week as if they are.
Ending Ex-Im is a small win for limited government, but it is an important chance for Republicans to show they oppose corporate welfare. Republicans in Congress have given conservatives too few victories; they should not now throw away the possibility of one.