The Export-Import Bank is dead. Let’s keep it that way.
This hoary relic of the Great Depression has been plagued with corruption and fraud. Its lending practices primarily benefit a handful of wealthy American mega-corporations and, far too often, unsavory interests abroad.
Ex-Im’s charter expired on June 30, but special interests continue to press Congress to revive it. Lawmakers wishing to keep this monument to crony capitalism dead and buried can draw some valuable “how-to” lessons from past successful efforts to resist wasteful special-interest pleadings.
In 1988 Congress established the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) Commission to close unnecessary and expensive military bases. For years, successive administrations had treated basing decisions as political bonbons, keeping certain bases open for their friends, while closing others.
Congressmen and senators were unwilling to bear the weight of making rational closure decisions themselves. Voting to close a base in one’s home state carried severe political risk. And if politicians in one state voted to close a base in another state, the congressmen and senators from that state would likely return the favor.
Local economies often grow dependent on military bases. So even if keeping a base open was fiscally irresponsible (from a federal perspective) and wholly unnecessary for the nation’s security, the parochial interests of constituents usually trumped national interests for congressmen and senators.
Enter, the BRAC process. It allowed lawmakers to escape voting on individual base closures. Instead, they would cast a single, up-or-down vote on a package of closures recommended by non-political and military experts. With this arrangement, members could reassure their constituents that they were acting in the best interest of the nation, not targeting a hometown base for closure.
Creating the BRAC Commissions process required strong congressional leadership, the same type of leadership that is desperately needed now to fight the favoritism and cronyism that pervades Washington.
Lawmakers should also look back to how they were finally able to ban “earmarks” four years ago. “Earmarking” was the appropriations practice that allowed members of congress to “bring home the bacon” by directing federal funds to friends and supporters back home. Over 70 percent of Americans believed earmarks were wasteful and should be discontinued. Privately, many members of congress agreed. But when a public vote was taken in the Senate in 2010, the proposed ban on earmarks failed 39 – 56.
