A few months ago, Senator Ted Cruz did what many thought was impossible: He won the Iowa caucus in spite of his open opposition to the ethanol mandate and a promise to end it. To a lesser degree, Bernie Sanders also won a primary in spite of his opposition to a crony program dear to some very powerful interests in that state: The state is Washington, the program is the Export-Import Bank, and the special interests are some of the unions and Boeing, the biggest domestic beneficiary of the program and the biggest private employer in the state. Washington state is also the biggest recipient of Ex-Im money with over 40 percent of the program benefiting the state.

It is also worth noting that both Cruz and Sanders’s competitors in the race didn’t support their position and were happy to cater to crony interests. Bernie Sanders has not only opposed the program consistently since 2002 but he is also the only Democrat who voted against it in the Senate. Hillary Clinton is a big supporter of the Bank and has attacked Sanders for his opposition to the program. While campaigning in Washington at the Machinists’ union hall in Everett she made sure that the differences between her and Sanders on the issue were known to the crowd. She said, “I just shook my head” when Sanders joined conservative Republicans in criticizing the bank as a vehicle for corporate welfare.

Her support for the program illustrates everything that is wrong about corporate welfare. It doesn’t matter that the program doesn’t do what it says it does, or that it hurts many non-beneficiaries in the process, because what matters is that Hillary is doing a favor to Boeing by supporting Ex-Im and that very grateful Boeing representatives have repaid the politician handsomely and will continue to repay the favor in the future. The Seattle Times reports:

And while Clinton’s work on behalf of Boeing has been explored in other news reports, recently disclosed messages from Clinton’s private email server give new insights into the symbiotic relationship and how much her department reveled in Boeing success.
During the periods when Secretary Clinton was pushing governments to sign deals with Boeing, the aerospace company provided financial support to help her achieve a major foreign-policy goal. Boeing also donated more than $1 million to the Clinton family’s global foundation set up by her husband, former President Clinton, and sponsored speeches that paid him six-figure sums.

Now, it is true that while Boeing is an important player in Washington state politics and the company has fought really hard to get Ex-Im reauthorized, the program doesn’t carry the same weight as the ethanol mandate in Iowa. In addition, as weird as it is to many of us, Bernie Sanders’s self-proclaimed socialist policies are a big draw in that region. Still, I hope that in the future politicians on the campaign trail will remember that one’s opposition to crony programs in states where they matter a lot to powerful special interests is not a guaranteed political death. That’s a step in the right direction.