Ex-Im Bank for domestic loans and more Solyndras?

President Obama not only wants to keep the Export-Import Bank running, he wants to expand it, the Cato Institute reports, so it can "finance U.S. corporations' domestic sales, as well." So it can finance more Solyndras?

More from Cato:

The bank was first established in the 1930s to finance exports to the Soviet Union, but long after the fall of Communism it still exists, picking favorites among U.S. producers. It has special programs for certain industries, acting as a sort of financier of industrial policy, and puts its financial muscle behind politically connected firms, leaving taxpayers exposed to tens of billions of dollars of potential losses on loan guarantees.

One of those chosen firms, incidentally, was Solyndra — the notorious and now-bankrupt company into which the U.S. government sunk more than $500 million of taxpayers' money in subsidies and loan guarantees. According to the Ex-Im Bank's 2011 Annual Report, Solyndra received a $10 million loan guarantee from Ex-Im, which financed a sale of Solyndra products to a customer in Belgium.

A state credit agency that dispenses tens of billions of taxpayer dollars mainly to large U.S. corporations to underwrite their export sales distorts markets enough. But if the bank's supporters and the Obama administration have their way, Ex-Im will start to finance the purchase of American goods in the United States as well, clearing the way for even more intervention in international commerce and the domestic economy than already exists.

Related posts:

Export-Import Bank a friend of big business, 'zombie' Air India, and the defunct Soviet Union

Kill the Export-Import Bank

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