We're in real trouble: Trump voters loyal in the face of jobs losses in Waukesha, while attacking Paul Ryan!!!

This is almost like a surreal nightmare that just keeps playing out over and over. 

In a blog I'm still working on, it's appears Americans on verge of losing their life saving health care are still on board with Trump. But that's not all.

These loyal voters have also decided to go down with the Trump ship in the face of losing their jobs: GE is moving from Waukesha to Canada...what is Trump doing about it?

GE CEO Jeff Immelt is a member of President Trump's manufacturing advisory council. Workers at the Waukesha plant, many of whom voted for Trump, are baffled that the president gave Immelt such a prominent role.

Bret Mattice is particularly surprised. He voted for the first time ever in 2016, casting his ballot for Trump because he felt Trump wasn't like the establishment Republicans and CEOs at all. "Trump's values were different than all of them," says Mattice, another long-time worker at the plant. He believes Trump cares about the "average person."

Mattice gives Trump a B+ grade so far.

 Huh? Here's the CNN Money feature story:



The GE plant moved because of Paul Ryan's little free market game bashing the Import/Export Bank:

GE first made the announcement that it was moving the factory to Canada on September 28, 2015. GE blames the job losses on Congress. In the summer of 2015, Congress shut down the Export-Import Bank. It's a government organization that provides money to help boost American exports."If Ex-Im had been reauthorized during that time, the decision to close Waukesha would not have been made," a GE spokesperson told CNNMoney.

At the end of 2015, Congress re-authorized the bank. But it hasn't been able to do any major deals above $10 million because the U.S. Senate hasn't confirmed enough people to serve on the bank's board. Trump used to favor shutting the bank down, but he recently did a U-turn.

Inaction, even for a few months, gave other countries the opening to go after GE: 

Ryan says the bank had nothing to do with GE's choice to go to Canada. "GE's decision to upend the livelihoods of hundreds of Wisconsinites was deeply disappointing," Speaker Ryan's spokeswoman AshLee Strong, told CNNMoney. "The bank was reauthorized in (late) 2015, yet the plant is still closing."

Powerful nations that the U.S. competes against, including China and Germany, have something similar to the Ex-Im Bank. But many Republicans, including Ryan, slammed the bank as "corporate welfare." "Congress has failed to take action," a GE spokesperson told CNNMoney. "We are the only major economy on the planet without a fully functioning export credit agency."

Here's a graph:

EXIM Bank Fallout: GOP hold American jobs hostage, killing many, to force vote to lower Corporate Taxes.

Republicans have been amazingly upfront about their lack of concern about killing jobs. Their weird double standard doesn't even get them in trouble; state sanctioned corporate welfare is good, federal sanctioned corporate welfare is bad?

The Export Import Bank isn't really welfare either, since it just backs up loans to make trade possible, not costing taxpayers anything.

Getting their just deserts, in the heart of Republican country - Waukesha, the bleeding has begun:

Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly has sent a letter to Governor Scott Walker, House Speaker John Boehner, Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow, and the Waukesha Common Council — asking for the re-authorization of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. It’s a huge blow for the city of Waukesha
and (the loss of) 350 workers at its GE Power & Water factory, blaming Congress  The company notified employees and more than 400 U.S. suppliers of its plans. In Wisconsin alone, suppliers generate about $47 million in revenue from the Waukesha plant. GE officials are blaming the move on Congress — for failing to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States  ... “In many of the markets overseas, we must have that financing in order to even enter negotiations for contracts,” Shaun Wiggins with GE Power & Water in Waukesha said.

As I've highlighted in red, it's not corporate taxes killing the jobs in Waukesha, no matter how Walker and Paul Ryan insist it is. GE was very clear about why. If anything, this should be a lesson in spin for GOP voters. Here's what the bank does:

The Ex-Im Bank allows foreign governments and companies to get U.S.-backed loans to buy GE products ...

If the Democrats killed 350 jobs like this, you know what would have happened. But in fact, Democrats don't even have to kill jobs to be criticized for supposedly wanting to kill jobs with regulation, taxes and health care for all.

But Republicans? They can even double down in the face of actually killing jobs. In another example of Republican projection, Walker kinda admitted how his own party is using labor as pawns:

Gov. Scott Walker: “Unfortunately, I think (the jobs) are pawns in a larger political battle being played out in Washington."

Walker never saw the irony of the situation either. Walker's own mismanaged welfare program for state businesses, WEDC, doesn't even come close to the EXIM Banks reputation.

Walker couldn't get more clueless than this:

Walker: “I think it’s unwise for any corporation to be making decisions on where they place work based on one particular vote in the Congress,” the governor said.

Yea, just one vote that makes or breaks a companies ability to be a global player, that's all.

Rep. Paul Ryan doesn't care what companies are saying either. In fact, it's the same old reason Republicans oppose everything, "there are better ways..." Yea, isn't there always?

“Congressman Ryan remains opposed to the reauthorization of the Export-Import bank. He feels there are better ways Congress can promote economic growth; rather than continue with corporate welfare, we should be focused on fixing our tax code and reducing burdensome regulations, which are long term solutions to our economic woes.”

Walker won't blame Republicans and Rep. James Sensenbrenner for killing 350 jobs at GE.

Democrats and many Republicans in Washington support the Export Import Bank. But the tea party wing of the GOP is hoping to kill the bank completely, oddly claiming now that business handouts are a form of corporate welfare. It's like they don't see what's happening in their own red state legislatures.

For example, Scott Walker was a miserable failure as CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC). So much so they had to fire him. And while loans were forgiven and lost forever, all the while many jobs were never created or outsourced, that was okay. Yet Republicans in D.C. are claiming to oppose corporate welfare? No wonder conservative voters are all over the map trying to defend their politicians.

Scott Walker was asked about General Electric's plan to kill 350 jobs in the Republican stronghold of Waukesha, moving them to Canada because they have their own EXIM Bank. Not once did Walker mention his party's opposition to EXIM, or how Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner had a major role in killing jobs in his own district with no blowback:

Huffington Post

Big companies like GE and the many small businesses that are served by the EXIM Bank, to underwrite the sale and purchase of their products considered to "risking" by establishment banks, are pawns of extremist Republican politicians who want to kill the bank in exchange for lower corporate tax rates. Until then, tough luck folks.

That "larger political battle out in Washington" is a Republican game of chicken being played out against American labor for lower corporate tax rates. And as we've seen in GE's Waukesha plant, the family supporting American worker is losing.

On Upfront with Mike Gousha, BizTimes Milwaukee editor Andrew Weiland explained: Almost 200 businesses over the last decade have benefited from the EXIM Bank, accounting for $4 billion of export business activity: