RHINO Republican Update-Senator Mark Kirk:Right-wing purists, White House inaction threaten Ex-Im Bank

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

Business is likely to win its struggle to renew the life of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, at least in the Senate. But it would help if President Barack Obama would step up his activity on behalf of the bank, and the more-conservative House remains a big potential stumbling block.

So says U.S. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who, in an interview in his Chicago office, discussed the bank, his view that more Walgreen-style headquarters "inversion" moves may be inevitable, and his upcoming race for re-election.

On the bank, Mr. Kirk is co-sponsoring a measure with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia that would extend the life of the trade-promotion group another six years and which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says may be the best vehicle available to save the bank from libertarian purists who want to kill it.


The biggest problem facing the measure is "political right correctness," Mr. Kirk said, referring to the argument from some conservatives that companies ought to go out and find their own private financing and that the bank ought not be in the business of guaranteeing loans — even if the bank as a whole made money last year.

"We don't live in an ideal word but a real one," Mr. Kirk said, saying that each version of an increasingly popular plane manufactured by China received a subsidy of $50 million to $100 million from that country's government. "The bank has become a big (political litmus) test. But not renewing it would have some real costs."

If the loans where so "unrisky": the private sector would be making them. The rent-seeking update of the day. You'll be hearing more of these neo-mercantilist talking points in the coming weeks.