Tonko on GE Announcement: Job Loss in Schenectady Direct Result of Republican House Leadership Inability to Renew Export-Import Bank

Statement

Congressman Paul Tonko (D-NY) released the following statement after General Electric announced planned job cuts to their American plants -- including hundreds in their Schenectady, New York location. GE referred to the recent expiration of the Export-Import Bank, the official export credit agency of the United States, and the need for contracts to be backed by a government creditor as the reason work on a new contract would be completed by French workers instead of Americans.

"Let me be clear: the sole reason this work cannot be performed in Schenectady is that House Republicans have failed to renew the Export-Import Bank. Speaker Boehner and his leadership team have been held hostage by an extreme Tea Party element in the House of Representatives, and have ignored warnings from their colleagues, leading economists, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and countless other organizations and individuals as they allowed the Export-Import Bank's charter -- and the immeasurable good it does for the American worker and our economy -- to expire more than two months ago on June 30.

"I am disgusted by this loss, which is a wound Republican House Leadership has inflicted on hundreds of families in the Capital Region. Unfortunately, we will not be able to re-compete for this contract. American companies will, however, be able to compete for -- and win -- deals that are currently being negotiated with other developing nations. But only if House Republicans wake up and listen to what we've been saying for months -- that the Export-Import Bank levels the playing field for the American worker and the American small business owner.

"The blame game is played all too often in Washington and at the desks of cable news pundits. This, however, is a fact: These jobs are gone because Republican House Leadership decided it was more important to appease the extreme conservative flank of their own party than to abandon politics-as-usual and renew an agency that supported 164,000 jobs nationwide -- all at a $675 million surplus to the taxpayer -- last year alone. This, again, is an indisputable fact. One only needs to point to the Republican-controlled Senate and their overwhelming vote on July 27th to renew the agency to demonstrate that there is bipartisan support for the bank. All these families in Schenectady needed was for Speaker Boehner to give us a vote. That never happened.

"This is the biggest blow to our community, which has enjoyed the success and prosperity of an apolitical partnership between the private and public sectors for decades, in a very long time. I invite anyone in Washington, including House Republican Leadership, to visit Schenectady and look the families that lost their jobs in the face to show them what inaction in Washington means for hard working Americans across the country. Enough is enough.

"We have two choices: reauthorize an agency that returns money to the taxpayers and supports Capital Region, Made-In-America jobs, or lose more work to the French. I know which one I'd choose.

"And it's not a hard decision."

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