These Guys Use 'Small Business' to Get Their Way in Washington: America's Biggest Rent-Seeking Scam

The Foundry reports:

Saying that something helps small businesses is a great way to gain public support for your cause. Except when it’s not true.

Take, for example, claims about the government-run Export-Import Bank, which subsidizes U.S. exports by providing discount loans to foreign governments and businesses to purchase American goods. According to bank Chairman Fred Hochberg: “Helping small businesses…grow and compete on the global stage is at the heart of the Bank’s mission.”

Boosting the fortunes of mom-and-pop businesses certainly sounds noble — and much more likely to win support from Congress. But the real beneficiaries aren’t exactly what most people would consider “small.”

Under the bank definition, a small business can employ up to 1,500 people and pull in revenues of up to $21 million annually, depending on which sector of the economy it’s in. And even by that definition, the vast majority of subsidized financing goes to major corporations rather than “small” entities

Rent-seeking gone wild.