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Over at the Washington Examiner, I have a piece about the Ex-Im reauthorization bill that the House of Representatives will vote on today. I argue that even if this year’s battle ends in defeat, it has already been a significant nearly five-year-long victory, with guaranteed chances for victory in the future:
The Nobel-winning economist Ronald Coase once wrote, “An economist who, by his efforts, is able to postpone by a week a government program which wastes $100 million a year (which I would call a modest success) has, by his action, earned his salary for the whole of his life.” Over the period from 2014 to 2018, Ex-Im’s reduced activity spared taxpayers from nearly $48 billion of risk exposure, or nearly $12 billion per year. Ex-Im’s total portfolio decreased by $52 billion, or an average of $13 billion per year. This is more than a modest success.
Due to Ex-Im’s reauthorization requirement, reformers will have another opportunity in a few years—a lesson in institutional design that should be applied to other agencies.
Read the whole thing here.
The House of Representatives will vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank today. Even if Ex-Im is reauthorized, the fight over it has already yielded a significant nearly five-year-long victory, in savings to taxpayers, with greater chances for victory in the future.
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