It’s similar to a zombie movie: just when you thought they were gone, they come lumbering back in their inexorable (and voracious) death march.  Case in point: the Export-Import Bank died in June, but, like most zombies, it didn’t stay dead. A provision in the gas-guzzling Highway Bill, signed by Obama last Friday, December 4, 2015, will revive the bank until 2019.  A well-heeled coalition of corporate interests lobbied for this unholy revival of the bank, which uses taxpayer money to subsidize foreign companies and governments buying American goods.

The Export-Import Bank was, for many years, an under-the-radar government corporation subsidizing American exports under the guise of “filling gaps in private export financing.”  However, a majority of the taxpayer-subsidized guarantees has gone to support Boeing, one of the largest and most profitable companies in the United States, as well as General Electric and Emirates, the flagship airline of the United Arab Emirates.  The bank counters this criticism by saying it costs nothing to the taxpayer to operate. This is only possible because the bank backs credit-strong companies with long records of success, clients that should be easily served by the private market. At the same time, very few companies benefit from the bank’s intended purpose of “filling finance gaps” in the economy, while politically-connected corporations are propelled forward by the walking dead.