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Acting without any legal authority, President Obama has overridden the federal charter of the Export-Import Bank, and turned it into a competitor for domestic loan business, in utter defiance of the law. Hardly anyone has noticed or seems to care. Speaking at a Boeing assembly plant in Everett, Washington Friday, President Barack Obama announced a bold new plan to help American exporters: he would broaden the services of the Ex-Im Bank to help grow our exports....This 2012 initiative turns the concept of export finance on its head. It directly orders a bank to disregard its ban on domestic loans, and sell domestically. The initiative orders the Ex-Im Bank to disregard its requirement to loan only on export shipments, and instead to loan operating cash to put companies in a better position to export (a goal with no substance whatever). It orders them to break their cardinal rule against competing with private domestic banks. And by definition, it likely means that these expanded offerings will crowd out the very kind of loans -- to foreign purchasers of American export goods - that the Ex-Im Bank was created to provide.This administration is making a habit of directing government agencies to change their very jobs without congressional authority. The military isn't there to fight wars, but perhaps to help with disaster assistance. The Department of Education is to issue guidelines on children's diets. NASA is to stop flying into outer space, and instead is to propagandize about the scientific contributions of Islam through the ages. The Department of Energy is to thwart energy independence by denying permits that would produce domestic energy.And now the Export-Import Bank is to loan money to domestic customers engaging in domestic transactions.This administration is abusing government, by using agencies for purposes other than their constitutional or statutory functions. This government by executive fiat grows ever more random, ever more disconnected from the reality of the legislation that chartered these departments and agencies as they wander ever farther afield.
