Kucinich: Pull the plug on Export-Import Bank

Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is criticizing the Export-Import Bank, arguing that it only helps big corporations.

{mosads}In an op-ed for USA Today on Monday, Kucinich and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) write that lawmakers should not extend the bank’s charter, which lapsed June 30 but is expected to be extended as part of a transportation funding bill later this month.

“While it began as a New Deal-era program with good intentions, the Ex-Im Bank has become a slush fund for a handful of well-connected megacorporations,” Kucinich and Jordan write. “Efforts to reform the bank, including one by Kucinich in 2002, have ended in disappointment.”

Supporters of the bank argue that its federally-backed international financing of projects helps sustain thousands of jobs in the U.S.

Nearly all Democrats, with the exception of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who’s running for the party’s presidential nomination, support reauthorizing the bank.