On Friday, July 24, 2015 Obama is due to arrive in Kenya, the country of his father’s birth, for the first time since he was a U.S. senator in 2006, and the first stop on his two-nation African tour in which he will also visit Ethiopia.
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WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged lawmakers to resume the constitution for the U.S. Export-Import Bank earlier than leaving for an August break, saying small and enormous businesses alike have been harm by the lapse in new mortgage ensures and commerce insurance coverage.
An obscure federal agency unknown to most Americans, the Export-Import Bank underwrites loans to foreign companies that are purchasing American products, which helps U.S. businesses successfully market their products overseas.
Obama told journalists that closing the 81-year-old government agency amounted to unilateral disarmament because “every other advanced country on Earth has a program like this”. Businesses are in danger.
At the meeting with Obama, an official of a company called Air Tractor said that without the Export-Import Bank’s help, it could drop a quarter of its 265 jobs making crop dusters in the three-stoplight West Texas town of Olney. “We need to get this done”. Conservatives denounce it as corporate welfare, although Mr. Obama insisted that’s not the case. With conservative opponents celebrating its demise, prospects to revive it are uncertain. The House already has passed a highway funding bill that does not include renewal of the Ex-Im Bank, and the Senate now is working on its own highway bill.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest stopped just short of issuing a veto threat Wednesday, though he made the clear the president “will insist” that reauthorization be included in the broader highway package.
“Obviously, we do not at all support a measure like that”, Earnest said about Paul’s amendment.
“It is true that Boeing is able to sell planes and GE is able to sell big turbine engines in part because of this kind of financing”, Obama said.
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The bank can not now make new loans or guarantees but remains in business to service billions in outstanding loans and guarantees. However, its funding runs out September 30, so its outlook becomes even shakier if Congress does not act before then.
