Last week, the House passed a slam-dunk jobs bill (H.R. 3606) 390-23.  The bill reduces red tape, securities regulations, and reporting requirements on small companies that desire to go public.  It also eliminated some of the new regulations implemented under Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley on companies that generate less than $1 billion in annual revenue.  With all the unctuous complaints about partisanship, one would expect the Senate to harness this rare opportunity to work together and pass the bill expeditiously.  With Harry Reid in charge of the Senate, all bets are off.

Reid announced that he would bring the House bill to the floor, but would attempt to attach a non-germane amendment to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which expires May 31, through 2015 and raise its loan limit from $100 billion to $140 billion.  He is taking a no-brainer bill and sinking it with a poison pill.  What’s worse, the consideration of the House jobs bill was supposed to be the prize to Republicans for agreeing not to block Obama’s judicial nominees that are being rammed through the Senate in short order.

Unfortunately, the Ex-Im corporate welfare bank is not necessarily a poison pill for many Republicans.  In typical pale-pastel fashion, House leaders planned to bring a separate Ex-Im bill to the floor that would enact one-year reauthorization at $113 billion.

At a time when we are fighting against Obama’s corporate welfare, why are we picking winners and losers in the market by extending taxpayer loans to entities that are too risky to receive private-sector loans?  When we are scouring Obama over his loans to failed solar energy companies, why are we agreeing to expand the Fannie Mae of corporate welfare?

Republicans must call out Harry Reid for his duplicity and must stand united against the Ex-Im Bank reuthorization.