Obama flip-flops on Export-Import Bank position

Once again, President Obama has flip-flopped on another issue.

In 2008, then Sen. Obama (D., Ill.) opposed the Export-Import Bank calling it “little more than a fund for corporate welfare.”

A complete position reversal was exposed during a Friday news conference when Obama strongly defended the institution:

This must have the Chamber of Commerce with a big smile. Mary Landrieu, Senator from LA as well. See, Obama has had a turn about once again because those big buck are calling once again. This time it is the Import-Export Bank. Recall   Chamber of Commerce to back Democrat Mary Landrieu? It was all over the support of the Import-Export Bank. 

Rob Engstrom, the US Chamber of Commerce’s national political director, recently told a gathering of trade association executives that the Chamber planned to endorse Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu in her reelection bid this year. The endorsement, reported by the New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, could decide the balance of power in the Senate and preserve Sen. Harry Reid as majority leader.

WSJ: So far this year, $1.62 billion has been spent on lobbying Congress. Who tops the list? This year, as always, the biggest spender is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has already spent $54.4 million; search the bills it’s lobbying for by year here.

Now on Friday:

“But for some reason, right now the House Republicans have decided that we shouldn’t do this, which means that when American companies go overseas and they’re trying to close a sale on selling Boeing planes, for example, or a GE turbine or some other American product that has all kinds of subcontractors behind it and is creating all kinds of jobs and all of sorts of small businesses depend on that sale, and that American company’s going up against a German company or a Chinese company, and the Chinese and the American — the German company are providing financing and the American company isn’t, we may lose that sale,” Obama argued.

“Why — when did that become something that Republicans opposed? It’d be like me having a car dealership for Ford, and the Toyota dealership offers somebody financing and I don’t. We will lose business, and we’ll lose jobs if we don’t pass it,” Obama continued.

Earlier this week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) argued the Ex-Im bank is representative of “crony capitalism.”

Reuters reports.

Filed under: Government Tagged: Barack Obama, Congress, Export-Import banl, Import export bank, News, Obama, Politics