Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner contends recent developments in the Ex-Im Bank debate offer an early test for presumptive U.S. House speaker Paul Ryan.
In the chaos of a leaderless party and a massive budget deal, K Street Republicans, led by Tennessee Rep. Stephen Fincher, teamed up with Democrats to pass a bill Tuesday night to revive the defunct Export-Import Bank. …
… So here’s the question: Who’s party is this? Is it Paul Ryan’s Party or Steve Fincher’s Party?
Ryan, for years, supported corporate welfare. Under Bush, Ryan voted for Ex-Im, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Wall Street bailout and the Detroit bailout.
Since the late 2008 bailout bonanza, Ryan has had the zeal of a convert against corporate welfare. He wrote an op-ed in 2010 headlined “Down With Big Business,” channeling a famous Wall Street Journal editorial from the late 1970s.
“The problem we have had as a party,” he said, “is we have often confused being pro-market with being pro-business.”
He voted against Ex-Im in 2012, and became an outspoken opponent of it after that. He wants to reform the tax code to get rid of the complexity that “stifle[s] that entrepreneur who has an idea, who might not have connections.”
Paul Ryan is no libertarian ideologue, but he’s decided that fighting corporate welfare is essential to a defense of free enterprise and limited government.
Steve Fincher is also a convert. He was elected as a Tea Partier of sorts. He promised to “work for everyday Tennesseans, not the special interests. Trillion-dollar bailouts, bloated budgets and boondoggle spending packages aren’t working, at least for my friends and neighbors …”
Then he came to D.C. and went native.
