Tea Party turns on Big Business!!! Oops.

It looks like the tea party is purposely killing off the GOP’s major funding source, big business. Way to go Koch brothers.

The tea party pressure to actually be a “free market” utopia, while reducing the size of government, has just become a huge problem for Republicans and their corporate funders. Businesses are now worried they may lose most of their Republican favors and handouts. 

I noticed this article today from AP:

Faced with conservative opposition, House Speaker John Boehner is declining to take a position on renewing the Export-Import Bank … His new stance deals a blow to a top priority of the business community. "Some people believe that we shouldn't have it at all, others believe that we should reauthorize it … The government agency provides loans, loan guarantees and credit insurance to help foreign buyers purchase American-made products. Its charter expires in September, and without legislation, it would not be able to back new loans.

...but conservative groups are opposed, saying it amounts to corporate welfare and that the private sector can fill its place.

By coincidence, WaPo’s Greg Sargent noticed the same thing, and wrote a piece that highlighted the dangers of encouraging the radical right. I'm enjoying the irony:

The GOP is letting Tea Party predilections and preoccupations set the party’s agenda — at the direct expense of the business community’s priorities.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has vowed a major effort to defeat Tea Party candidates and invested $100,000 in Cochran’s victory. 

It’s unlikely House GOP opposition to the Ex-Im Bank will lead to a government shutdown, but that possibility cannot be ruled out entirely. Last fall’s government shutdown, of course, was a symbol for the business community of the perils of Tea Party influence over the GOP. Then there’s the Highway Trust Fund. If it becomes insolvent, it could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs … But GOP leaders’ ability to come up with a way to pay for this is already constrained by Tea Party hostility to government. Most glaring of all: Immigration reform … the general GOP posture is that this crisis makes reform less likely, when it should make it more urgent … the business community sees it as key to growing the economy.