How and Why the Koch-Backed Freedom Caucus Killed 350 US Jobs
Tuesday, 27 October 2015 00:00 By The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann
Program | Op-Ed
Jim Flemming, the manager at General Electric's plant, which is being shut
down, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, October 15, 2015. GE plans to close the engine
factory in Waukesha that President Obama visited in 2014 and move hundreds
of jobs to Canada because of the Export-Import Bank's closure. (Photo: Sara
Stathas / The New York Times)
Just 22 months ago, the Waukesha, Wisconsin, General Electric factory was
flourishing.
It was churning out gas engines on the regular and putting hundreds of US
machinists to work.
In fact, the factory was doing do so well that President Obama came to town
to praise it as an example of how US manufacturing was finally bouncing back
after the Great Recession.
But then in September of this year, GE suddenly announced that it was
closing the Waukesha facility and moving its 350 jobs across the border to
Canada.
That's right, Canada!
Which raises the question: Why would a proud US company like GE move one of
its most famous factories, one that the president publicly praised, to, you
know, Canada?
The answer to that question is actually pretty easy.
GE moved its factory Canada because Republicans killed the Export-Import
bank.
Formed in 1934 to help finance and subsidize US trade abroad, the
Export-Import bank was, for most of its history, pretty uncontroversial.
And for good reason too.
Since it gave money to foreign companies to help them buy US products, the
bank helped support hundreds of thousands of good US jobs.
And since the money that it gave out came in the form of loans and countries
had to pay us interest to buy our manufactured goods, it also made a $1
billion profit for Treasury Department.
So, it helps make US companies more competitive abroad, supports jobs at
home and makes money for the government - sounds like a win-win for everyone
involved, right?
Not according to the Tea Party.
This year hard-right Tea Party members of the Republican caucus in the House
of Representatives successfully blocked the reauthorization of the
Export-Import bank, on the grounds that it was "corporate welfare" and
"crony capitalism."
And so, on July 1 of this year, the 81-year-old bank's charter expired,
leaving its future in limbo.
This left the United States pretty much alone in the developed world as a
country without a functioning export bank, so companies started moving their
US factories to countries that do have export-import banks.
One of those companies was General Electric, which decided to move that
Waukesha, Wisconsin factory to Canada because Canada, like most developed
countries, has an Export-Import Bank-like institution.
If this whole saga were a murder mystery, the Tea Party or House Freedom
Caucus would be the guilty villain.
It let the Export-Import Bank expire, and, in doing so, killed the Waukesha,
Wisconsin, GE factory and its 350 jobs.
But like all good murder mysteries, the story of who killed the Waukesha,
Wisconsin, GE factory has a twist.
And that twist is the fact is the fact that the Tea Party and House Freedom
Caucus were apparently acting as hit men for a much bigger interested party:
the Koch brothers.
How do we know this?
Well, for one, we now know, thanks to Politico, that the House Freedom
Caucus is pretty much wholly owned by the Kochs.
The two leading donors to the so-called Freedom Caucus are Koch Industries
itself and the Club for Growth, a major Koch-affiliated group, so anything
the House Freedom Caucus does will, presumably, in some way or another,
benefit the Koch brothers and their fossil fuel empire.
So that's the Koch connection, but what's the motive?
Why did the Kochs apparently order the House Freedom Caucus to kill the
Export-Import bank?
Could it be because the bank cuts into the domestic fossil fuel industry's -
which presumably includes Koch Industries - bottom line?
As The New York Times reported over the weekend, two scholars from the
Koch-backed Mercatus Center recently put out a study that:
"looked at the largest buyers of exports supported by Export-Import Bank
financing and found that the top 10 were all either foreign oil companies or
airlines. The [Koch-funded] authors singled out the subsidies to foreign oil
companies: 'The federal government,' the report said, 'doubly disadvantages
US energy firms - through Washington's excessive regulation and Ex-Im Bank
subsidies to US firms' foreign competitors."
In other words, the Export-Import Bank makes rival fossil fuel companies
like Shell and BP more profitable than Koch Industries.
So there you have it, Sherlock.
It looks like the Kochs had the House Freedom Caucus take out the
Export-Import Bank to slightly increase the profitability or competitiveness
of their own fossil fuel empire, US jobs be damned.
Another neat little trick courtesy of the Koch-Freedom Caucus is shutting
down the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which supports parks, beaches,
bike paths, playgrounds and all sorts of other public areas.
It turns out that the Land and Water Conservation fund - as Timothy Egan
points out in The New York Times - is funded by a very tiny tax on oil
pumped out of the ground from public lands. It's how domestic oil companies
pay us all for their ability to extract oil from public lands we all own.
And, surprise, Republican Congressman Rob Bishop - who has the oil and gas
industry as his largest contributor according to Open Secrets - has pretty
much single-handedly killed the fund. No more tiny tax on fossil fuel
dynasties in the US.
If you want to know what the Koch-Freedom Caucus cartel is up to next, just
ask what would be of greatest benefit to the Koch Brothers and their
company.
And, just for clarity, if the reporting in The New York Times and Politico
is true, shouldn't we be calling it the "Koch Caucus?" Or at least, the
"Koch's Freedom Caucus?"
This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction
on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of
publication.
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How and Why the Koch-Backed Freedom Caucus Killed 350 US Jobs
Tuesday, 27 October 2015 00:00 By The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann
Program | Op-Ed
. font size Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.
. Jim Flemming, the manager at General Electric's plant, which is
being shut down, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, October 15, 2015. GE plans to close
the engine factory in Waukesha that President Obama visited in 2014 and move
hundreds of jobs to Canada because of the Export-Import Bank's closure.
(Photo: Sara Stathas / The New York Times)
. Want to challenge injustice and make real change happen? That's
Truthout's goal - support our work with a donation today!
Just 22 months ago, the Waukesha, Wisconsin, General Electric factory was
flourishing.
It was churning out gas engines on the regular and putting hundreds of US
machinists to work.
In fact, the factory was doing do so well that President Obama came to town
to praise it as an example of how US manufacturing was finally bouncing back
after the Great Recession.
See more news and opinion from Thom Hartmann at Truthout here.
But then in September of this year, GE suddenly announced that it was
closing the Waukesha facility and moving its 350 jobs across the border to
Canada.
That's right, Canada!
Which raises the question: Why would a proud US company like GE move one of
its most famous factories, one that the president publicly praised, to, you
know, Canada?
The answer to that question is actually pretty easy.
GE moved its factory Canada because Republicans killed the Export-Import
bank.
Formed in 1934 to help finance and subsidize US trade abroad, the
Export-Import bank was, for most of its history, pretty uncontroversial.
And for good reason too.
Since it gave money to foreign companies to help them buy US products, the
bank helped support hundreds of thousands of good US jobs.
And since the money that it gave out came in the form of loans and countries
had to pay us interest to buy our manufactured goods, it also made a $1
billion profit for Treasury Department.
So, it helps make US companies more competitive abroad, supports jobs at
home and makes money for the government - sounds like a win-win for everyone
involved, right?
Not according to the Tea Party.
This year hard-right Tea Party members of the Republican caucus in the House
of Representatives successfully blocked the reauthorization of the
Export-Import bank, on the grounds that it was "corporate welfare" and
"crony capitalism."
And so, on July 1 of this year, the 81-year-old bank's charter expired,
leaving its future in limbo.
This left the United States pretty much alone in the developed world as a
country without a functioning export bank, so companies started moving their
US factories to countries that do have export-import banks.
One of those companies was General Electric, which decided to move that
Waukesha, Wisconsin factory to Canada because Canada, like most developed
countries, has an Export-Import Bank-like institution.
If this whole saga were a murder mystery, the Tea Party or House Freedom
Caucus would be the guilty villain.
It let the Export-Import Bank expire, and, in doing so, killed the Waukesha,
Wisconsin, GE factory and its 350 jobs.
But like all good murder mysteries, the story of who killed the Waukesha,
Wisconsin, GE factory has a twist.
And that twist is the fact is the fact that the Tea Party and House Freedom
Caucus were apparently acting as hit men for a much bigger interested party:
the Koch brothers.
How do we know this?
Well, for one, we now know, thanks to Politico, that the House Freedom
Caucus is pretty much wholly owned by the Kochs.
The two leading donors to the so-called Freedom Caucus are Koch Industries
itself and the Club for Growth, a major Koch-affiliated group, so anything
the House Freedom Caucus does will, presumably, in some way or another,
benefit the Koch brothers and their fossil fuel empire.
So that's the Koch connection, but what's the motive?
Why did the Kochs apparently order the House Freedom Caucus to kill the
Export-Import bank?
Could it be because the bank cuts into the domestic fossil fuel industry's -
which presumably includes Koch Industries - bottom line?
As The New York Times reported over the weekend, two scholars from the
Koch-backed Mercatus Center recently put out a study that:
"looked at the largest buyers of exports supported by Export-Import Bank
financing and found that the top 10 were all either foreign oil companies or
airlines. The [Koch-funded] authors singled out the subsidies to foreign oil
companies: 'The federal government,' the report said, 'doubly disadvantages
US energy firms - through Washington's excessive regulation and Ex-Im Bank
subsidies to US firms' foreign competitors."
In other words, the Export-Import Bank makes rival fossil fuel companies
like Shell and BP more profitable than Koch Industries.
So there you have it, Sherlock.
It looks like the Kochs had the House Freedom Caucus take out the
Export-Import Bank to slightly increase the profitability or competitiveness
of their own fossil fuel empire, US jobs be damned.
Another neat little trick courtesy of the Koch-Freedom Caucus is shutting
down the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which supports parks, beaches,
bike paths, playgrounds and all sorts of other public areas.
It turns out that the Land and Water Conservation fund - as Timothy Egan
points out in The New York Times - is funded by a very tiny tax on oil
pumped out of the ground from public lands. It's how domestic oil companies
pay us all for their ability to extract oil from public lands we all own.
And, surprise, Republican Congressman Rob Bishop - who has the oil and gas
industry as his largest contributor according to Open Secrets - has pretty
much single-handedly killed the fund. No more tiny tax on fossil fuel
dynasties in the US.
If you want to know what the Koch-Freedom Caucus cartel is up to next, just
ask what would be of greatest benefit to the Koch Brothers and their
company.
And, just for clarity, if the reporting in The New York Times and Politico
is true, shouldn't we be calling it the "Koch Caucus?" Or at least, the
"Koch's Freedom Caucus?"
This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction
on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of
publication.
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Show Comments