The Export-Import Bank has proposed a $2 billion loan to a Brazilian oil company to fund oil drilling and development by a state-owned company, hurting American workers, oil companies, and the country’s energy independence. Sarah Palin sees this is as a rather self-defeating strategy.

After the idea went public, Palin quickly noted that President Obama wants to use American dollars to pay salaries and benefits to Brazilians — to state-owned oil company, Petrobras, at that — to the detriment of our own country.

In response, Ex-Im Bank spokesman Phil Cogan tried to mislead people, and disprove Palin’s assessment, by saying the government agency, started in 1934, has a function which is to lend money to foreign companies for the purchase of American goods and services. "It has to be produced by U.S. workers," Cogan said.

But even Senator Bernie Sanders knows that the Ex-Im bank is a massive U.S. corporate welfare giveaway program. According to Sanders, and this was a few years back, 80 percent of the subsidies distributed by the taxpayer funded Ex-Im Bank went to Fortune 500 companies including Enron, Halliburton, General Electric, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, General Motors, and more. GE received $2.5 billion in direct loans from Ex-Im with the result that GE reduced it’s workforce by 270,000 jobs. Then GE moved to Mexico. 

Sanders further pointed out Ex-Im’s egregious track record for foreign investments: That $18 million went to a Chinese steel mill that proceeded to illegally dump steel into the United States; $673 million was loaned to a project in India that was turned down by the World Bank as being “not economically viable’; Boeiing aircraft sales deal with the Chinese military was subsidized, the actual work moved to a factory in Communist China, while ditching Americans workers.

There is little evidence, if any, to support Cogan’s claim that the Ex-Im Bank upholds a commitment to support American goods and services.

Politico reported that Cogan also told them that the bank does not rely on tax money.  Historically, since 1934, Congress routinely reauthorized appropriations from the U.S. Treasury for the Ex-Im bank. While it’s true that Ex-Im was chartered in 2006 and now is supposedly self-sustaining and hasn’t asked for more funds since about 2006, the Ex-Im Bank’s own chairman and president admits that financing of the Ex-Im Bank is still “ultimately backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.”

This thinly veiled foreign aid and outright welfare toward both friend and foe alike, courtesy of the American taxpayers for over 70 years is, according to Congressman Ron Paul, an immorality because it takes American workers’ earnings  and makes them available to wealthy companies. It is, he says, a form of credit allocation and protectionism that is not free trade but instead a competitive subsidization of special interest corporations:

Eximbank is not free trade, but rather managed trade, where winners and losers are determined by how well they please government bureaucrats instead of how well they please consumers.

Expenditures on the Eximbank distort the market by diverting resources from the private sector, where they could be put to the use most highly valued by individual consumers, into the public sector, where their use will be determined by bureaucrats and politically powerful special interests. By distorting the market and preventing resources from achieving their highest valued use, Eximbank actually costs Americans jobs and reduces American’s standard of living!

Simply by supporting the economic interests of communist countries and those engaged in state-sponsored terror, the Ex-Im Bank’s activities could certainly be termed treasonous. And through what is essentially a confiscation and redistribution of American earnings to wealthy companies across the world, even the creation of such an entity — the Ex-Im Bank — was unconstitutional.

Cogan and the Ex-Im bank certainly got caught out on this one, and rightfully so.

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danwhitehead1 said:

	High Treason I'm betting that there are an incredible number of people, both in and out of government, who should be arrested and tried, PUBLICLY, for treason.
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August 21, 2009
Votes: +8

still free said:

	Don't you wish our government would help American workers? Just more of the same and probably none of them will ever see a day in jail. But Ron Paul is right on target as usual--he is just awesome! I hope I live to see him in the White House.
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August 21, 2009
Votes: +4

Pat Henry said:

	... Ex-Im should be "taken on." But why promote Palin? Isn't she an insider (running with John McCain)?
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August 22, 2009
Votes: -1

still free said:

The GOP is part of the problem Just because Palin got one right does not mean she is the answer to all our problems. And she'll probably get some more right along the way, especially if she's got new handlers and loses the baggage (McCain). The GOP has lost the true Conservatives and is out of touch with reality in general, and has been for some time. And we know they are part of the problem--right in the thick of things on the NWO, NAU, NAFTA, CFR, TC and general treason a la carte. Palin is bright enough to recognize the current wave of unrest as an opportunity. Well, you'd have to blind, deaf and dumb not to see it. But she's attempting to lay the groundwork to jump on the wave in the hopes of riding it into the White House. While being pro-life is the only right way to be, it is not enough to be the president.

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August 22, 2009
Votes: +3

Thomas Paine said:

Palin is most likely a traitor to true conservative cause As mentioned so accurately in the above comments. We must be very skeptical of Sarah Palin. She comes from the new Oil State: Alaska. She is a true insider, controlled by the "establishment". The Orwellian state is coming full force with Palin. Take some advise from the Godfather, "If she picks Rudy Guliani as a running mate she is the traitor". The NWO behind 911 is taking over at breakneck speed with Obama setting the stage with Nationalizing healthcare. After he does his part, he will be taken out like Jimmy Carter was with high Interest rates in his last term (The bankers can pull the switch on interest rates at any time). Then comes the Republican savior: Sarah Palin. (Beware of the benevolent dictator)

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August 22, 2009
Votes: +0

ReaganTMan said:

Outrageous Now that Sarah Palin has brought this issue to light and the article above has further supported her position, I am outraged. You're tellin me that we don't drill here, yet we give foreign aid (a/k/a redisribution of our taxpayer wealth to Brazilian oil producers)? You have absolutely got to be kidding me. We really have to get this country out of the hands of the Democrats and the Obama socialists. We should work relentlessly to win Virginia and NJ in 2009, Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012. Sarah Palin appears to be the only one who can effectively communicate and raise interest in issues to the level where they are brought out front and center and not hidden by the Administration and the media. We should elect her president and get these issues resolved in 2012!

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August 22, 2009 | url
Votes: +4

Jpatt said:

	administrator Love how he funds jobs overseas as we Americans suffer. Brazil oil is not the only fubar this week. Goverment Motors is hiring additional employees due to demand from Cash for Clunkers. The catch, half of those jobs are in Canada. Obama Resistance!
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August 22, 2009 | url
Votes: +2

freekirk said:

	Waking Up I think Sarah is actually waking up. There are a lot of sleepers coming out of their twilight sleep. People need to feed her information. It's time to turn her into an info warrior also.
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August 22, 2009
Votes: +3

Citizen T - Los Angeles said:

	GO SARAH ! Private Citizen Sarah Palin represents and fights for Free Market American Individualism. GO SARAH !
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August 22, 2009
Votes: +5

Jilly said:

... Why no mention of how this 2B is going to a company in which Soros invested 800+ million a few days prior to the announcement of this loan? What isn't clear to me is do the benificiaries of these loans actually pay them back? And what authorizes our government to take our money this way when our POTUS alrady declared "we're already out of money"? Finally, Sarah isn't an insider, that's ridiculous. Haven't you paid attention to the GOP trashing her whenever they can? No establishment person, GOP or rat, wants her in power because, as she proved in Alaska, she would upset their long standing tradition of screwing the American taxpayer for their own benefit. After all, what person goes into Congress who doesn't come out with a ton more personal wealth, all the while claiming to be a "servant of the people".

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August 22, 2009
Votes: +3

Mizzbeee said:

Why they Hate Palin I'm going to agree with Jilly in the fact that Sarah Palin is an outsider to the Washington elite. But I'd like to go a bit further with this and have everyone ask themselves; What has the Washington elite ever done for us? Perhaps now is the time to remove the Washington elite and put someone just like us, who wants to create jobs and cut down government. Because she has the Alaskan pipeline ready to go, think of how many jobs it would create? We Desperately NEED jobs right here in the US. How many jobs have been created with the stimulus money? How many jobs will be taken away if any of these elaborate goverment takeover bills get past? I think we gave enough time for the Washingtn elites to take care of business and they have not. Palin has more government experience than Obama has. His inexperience is showing or his backers are in charge, whichever is true, neither is any good for the US. I say oust them and put more of "We the People" in office.

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August 22, 2009
Votes: +4

cap0965 said:

... Sarah Palin has the good of the American people in mind. Our current government in Washington has the good of their own pocket books, the good of their own power, and the good of their friends' pocket books in mind. If Americans do not support someone who is truly for the American people, and someone who has had the soundest of policies as Governor, then we are truly lost as a nation. Sarah Palin has NEVER supported the oil companies, what she has supported is free market capitalism, which is what has kept America FREE and PROSPEROUS. Our country, through this global recession is still the WEALTHIEST and FREEIST nation on the planet. This is not by coincidence, but by design. If we change that design, as we are now doing at rocket speed, we will be throwing out the design that made us who we are.

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August 22, 2009
Votes: +4

Jed13 said:

	... Has any one seen the movie international? This seems to be about the same thing.
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August 24, 2009
Votes: +1

Concerned Citizen said:

The solution needs help... Palin is only part of the solution... She will need an ammenable congress (both houses) in order to succeed otherwise she'll have to choose her battles... Let's help to get them elected. It's good to hear her sound off on issues that make common sense... now if she can gain some of that Reagan glow and personability she might go far God willing and the people paying attention... Haven't we had a few to many "choices" spoon fed to us by the media during the last few cycles? People were jazzed the last cycle because she was the true "maverick" not just some political hack who crossed the aisle to kiss the other sides butt just to enhance his own career...I see her as a sincere, discerning politico who always has her constituency's best interest at heart when she weighs substantive matters . Truly a rariety in today's world...

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August 25, 2009
Votes: +0

Peter Steele said:

	PALIN AND FAMILY FRIEND BARRY M. GOLDWATER, SR. Goldwater knew my Son of the American Revolution father who held the book "None Dare Call It Treason" since 1964. I know Sarah Palin as I have her calendar. The NYT did dirt on Goldwater and Palin as the News Fit For Treason"
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August 25, 2009
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JOHN P THOMAS said:

	Worthless Obama Administration I agree with Sarah Palins comments 1,000%....
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August 25, 2009 | url
Votes: +1

JOHN P THOMAS said:

	OUTRAGEOUS I agree with Palin 1,000%...
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August 25, 2009 | url
Votes: +1