Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I want to echo what my colleague from Washington said. To those who negotiated this trade package, well done. I am going to vote for the Portman amendment because I think currency manipulation should be addressed more forcefully.

If trade deals in the future are going to be like trade deals in the past, we need to look at what we are doing because some of the trade deals in the past have not worked out so well.

On this currency issue, I want to vote. On the bank, I am telling my leadership the following: I have talked with you and talked with you. I have forgone taking votes on the Ex-Im Bank because I did not want to rock the boat on the budget and other things. I am tired of talking. You are not going to get my vote for cloture or anything else this year until I get a vote--we get a vote--on the Ex-Im Bank. There are over 60 votes in this body.

To the chairman, whom I admire greatly, you mentioned China. Let me mention China. China makes wide-body jets. They are getting into the wide-body jets business big time. China makes about everything we make. Boeing makes 787s in South Carolina and Washington. GE makes gas turbines in Greenville, SC, mostly sold through Ex-Im financing to the developing world.

If you are worried about China stepping in if we do not have this great trade deal, here is what I am worried about: If our Bank expires, then the market share we have today because we have competitive financing goes away, and the biggest beneficiary of closing down the Bank will be China.

I am not going to subject American manufacturers to trying to sell their products overseas without ex-im financing while all their competitors have an ex-im bank. As a matter of fact, China's bank is bigger than the banks of the United States, France, England, and Germany combined.

Airbus is a great airplane. France and Germany have an ex-im bank. An American manufacturer, when it comes to a wide-body aircraft or any other product trying to be sold overseas in the developing world--this Bank makes money for the taxpayers and makes them competitive.

To all of those who really do believe in trade, the fact that you would let the Bank expire because of some ideological jihad on our side makes absolutely no sense to me. I will not be a part of that anymore.

To the people who are trying to make this the scalp for conservatism, I think you lost your way. This Bank makes money for the taxpayers. This Bank doesn't lose money. This Bank allows American manufacturers who are doing business in the developing world to have a competitive foothold against their competitors in China and throughout Europe and have access to Ex-Im financing. All we are talking about is an American-made product sold in the developing world where they cannot get traditional financing.

The Ex-Im Bank has been around for decades. Ronald Reagan was for the Ex-Im Bank. The Ex-Im Bank is directly responsible for helping to sell Boeing aircraft made in South Carolina. Seventy percent of the production in South Carolina is eligible for Ex-Im financing. There are thousands of small businesses which benefit from manufactured products sold in the developing world through Ex-Im financing.

Would I like to live in a world where there were no ex-im banks? Sure, but the world I am not going to live in is where we shut our Ex-Im Bank down and China keeps theirs open. I am not doing that. That is not trade. That is just idiotic. That is unilateral surrender.

Come to South Carolina and tell the people at Boeing and all of their suppliers--and go to the Greenville GE plant that hires thousands of South Carolinians and all of their small business suppliers--why it is a good idea for America to shut down a bank that makes money for the taxpayers that allows us to be competitive. Tell them how you think that is a good way to grow our economy. Tell those people who have good jobs in South Carolina--and who will surely lose market share because we closed our Bank down--how proud they should be of your ideological purity.

I welcome this debate in South Carolina down the road. But I promised my leadership and friends on the other side that I am a reasonable guy. I vote for issues give-and-take, but the one thing I will not do is allow the Bank to expire without a vote. If my colleagues can beat me on the floor, that is fine. I am not asking anyone to vote for the Bank. I am asking them to allow me to vote for the Bank because it is critical to the economy in my State and I think the Nation as a whole.

The only reason we are having this debate is because some outside groups have made this the conservative cause celebre--in my view, without any rational reason.

I have no problem helping the chairman and ranking member move this bill because they talk about how it will make it harder on China to take market share in Asia. The only thing I ask of this body is to allow me and my colleagues who care about the Ex-Im Bank--it is a small piece of the puzzle that has a gigantic impact. It made over $3 billion for the American taxpayers.

This Bank is essential for American manufacturers to be competitive in the developing world, and I will not let this Bank expire without a vote. I will not give market share to China or the Europeans. I will not do that.

I am willing to work with my colleagues, but they have to be willing to work with me. And if they are not willing to honor their word that they have been giving me for the last 6 months, then they have nobody to blame but themselves.

To the Senator from Washington, all we are asking for is a vote on the Ex-Im Bank--that has been around for decades, that Ronald Reagan said was a good idea and that has overwhelming bipartisan support--before June 30 on a vehicle that must become law if we can pass that amendment. I ask the Senator from Washington, is that correct?

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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, reclaiming my time, and I will wrap it up.

To my colleagues who have been raising money off of this, you can raise all the money you want to, but you will have to debate your ideas against my ideas. You will not be able to shut this Bank down without a vote. If you feel that good about your position, let's have a vote on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House.

The one thing we will not do is let the Bank die without a debate and a vote, and that debate and vote must come before June 30 because the damage will have been done.

I will not sit on the sidelines and watch jobs in my State be lost because of some ideological crusade, the biggest beneficiaries of which would be China and our European competitors. If you really do care about China's effect in the world marketplace, shutting the Ex-Im Bank down in America and allowing China to keep theirs open is a deathblow to American manufacturers that sell in the developing world.

With that, I yield the floor and look forward to a positive outcome so my colleagues can have their bill passed and have votes on amendments they care about and get the bill up and passed if the votes are there, as long as I get a chance, along with the Senator from Washington, to vote on what I care about and what I think is essential to the economy--and not just to South Carolina but to the manufacturing community that sells in the developing world.

I yield back.

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