Obama Signs Export-Import Bank Reauthorization
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File. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) — President Obama signed legislation Wednesday to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, saying the bill will help boost U.S. exports and create jobs here at home.
Hitting on campaign themes, the president hailed the bill as important to building a strong middle class and “the kind of economy where everybody is getting a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share, and everybody is playing by the same rules.”
“Part of building that broad-based economy with a strong middle class is making sure that we’re not just known as a nation that consumes. We’ve got to be a nation that produces, a nation that sells,” Obama said at a White House signing ceremony. “Our middle class was created by workers who made and sold the best products in the world. Our communities and our economy have always done better when we shipped more goods than anybody else, stamped with that phrase: ‘Made in America.’ And I want us to be that nation again.”
The Export-Import Bank aids U.S. exporters by providing financial assistance to foreign entities that purchase American-made goods. The bill that was signed Wednesday extends the institution’s mandate through September 2014 and raises its financing cap to $140 billion from the current $100 billion.
The president praised lawmakers for passing the legislation, but made clear “we’ve got more work to do.”
Obama went on to urge Congress to act on his legislative “to-do list” to grow the economy, arguing “we shouldn’t have to wait until an election to do some of this business.”
“I hope this ends up being a model for the kind of progress that we can make in the months to come and the years to come,” he said of the Export-Import Bank reauthorization.
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