General Electric announced they would move 1,000 jobs to the United Kingdom due to a lack of Export-Import bank funds, but a GE spokesman later said the deal would have gone through regardless of Ex-Im’s operation, Reuters reported.
GE’s announcement, "could be seen as the latest sign of U.S. exporters’ unhappiness at the winding down of the U.S. Export-Import bank, which lent money to foreign customers of U.S. exporters," states the article.
GE has already made claims that they would move jobs overseas to France instead of keeping them in the United States, due to a lack of Ex-Im funding. But reports found that those jobs don’t even exist.
A spokeswoman later said that the deal would have gone through regardless of whether Ex-Im was in operation or not.
"A GE spokeswoman said it was unlikely that GE would have made the investments in the United States even if Ex-Im had been operating, but the agreement was representative of the type of opportunities GE can no longer pursue in the U.S. while the bank is closed," said Reuters.
"Though the Export-Import Bank has begun an orderly winding down, the misleading rhetoric from beneficiaries of its corporate welfare has only been ratcheted up," said James Davis, a Freedom Partners spokesman. "GE’s latest admission that it was planning to expand to the United Kingdom with or without Ex-Im comes on the heels of the revelation that the jobs Boeing is planning to send overseas don’t actually exist."
"This casts serious doubt on the doom and gloom predictions made by Ex-Im supporters, exposing it as little more than a cynical political play to keep the tap of taxpayer funding flowing into their pockets," said Davis. "Congress must reject these desperate tactics and keep Ex-Im closed for good."