Where is the left on corporate bailouts?

Conservatives have been leading the charge to end an outdated corporate welfare program. The question everyone should be asking is: where have all the anti-corporation liberals gone?

We’re always told that Republicans are the Party of Big Business, forever eager to sell out ordinary middle-class families to the interests of megacorporations run by billionaire tycoons. And most people still believe it. But when it comes to ending actual corporate welfare, a lot of Democrats are mysteriously silent. Exhibit A: the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

The Ex-Im Bank is an 80-year-old, $2-billion boondoggle created as part of FDR’s New Deal program. It supposedly exists to support U.S. exports, but in reality it is “little more than a fund for corporate welfare.” That quote, by the way, comes from then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008. He was right then, but big corporate lobbies have now convinced him that the bank is, in fact, a pretty good idea. And he’s not alone.