WASHINGTON: A news conference at Limericks to highlight what could happen at the end of this month if the charter for the Export-Import Bank is not renewed by Congress before June 30″No private entity and no credit agency will touch anything outside the United States, but everything is overseas,” said John Hart, president and CEO of Lumetrics, which employs 25 workers making high tech measuring gauges. Without the shipping insurance he uses from the Export-Import Bank, Lumetrics would lose that $1 million in sales and would have to cut as many as six jobs, Hart said
The Bank also provides government-backed loan guarantees to finance sales to foreign customers when private lenders are unable or unwilling. In the Rochester area, the Bank has helped create685 jobs and $158 million in exports since 2010, at no cost to the taxpayers, Slaughter said.Opponents want authorization for the 81-year-old agency to expire because they consider it corporate welfare. But business groups, such as the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, say the Bank levels the playing field with other countries that provide government financing for their exporters.In 2014, the Bank authorized 3,700 projects that created or sustained 164,000 U.S. jobs, according to the Bank’s annual report.The bank authorized loans worth $20.5 billion in 2014, but because of fees charged and a low default rate the program costs taxpayers nothing, Bank officials say. Critics say the government’s accounting system actually hides a loss of about $200 million a year
