If government doesn’t hand out money to large corporations, then who will? Since 2015, the board of the Export-Import Bank has lacked the quorum it needs to approve loans over $10 million. That, report Veronique de Rugy and Justin Leventhal, has produced a very modest shift in how this government-sponsored enterprise distributes its largesse. Despite this shift, they write, Ex-Im is still “Boeing’s Bank.”
From fiscal year (FY) 2007 through FY 2017, 34 percent of all aid provided by the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank went to just one exporter: Boeing. This makes Boeing the single largest beneficiary of Ex-Im Bank support. For comparison, all small business authorizations combined in this 10-year period totaled only 22 percent of Ex-Im Bank aid.
While the Ex-Im Bank had a quorum, from FY 2007 through FY 2014, small businesses received only 20 percent of support provided by the Ex-Im Bank. Minority-owned businesses and female-owned businesses fared even worse, at 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
While small business allocations have shown significant increases since the Ex-Im Bank’s quorum lapsed, allocations to minority-owned and female-owned businesses have seen far more modest improvements. From FY 2015 through FY 2017, the portion of support directed to small businesses increased to 38 percent of all Ex-Im Bank support, the portion directed to minority-owned businesses increased to 6 percent, and female-owned businesses’ share grew to 3 percent.
[Veronique de Rugy and Justin Leventhal, “Ex-Im: Still ‘Boeing’s Bank,’” Mercatus Center, August 31]
