Has the House Majority Leader Changed His Mind on Export-Import Bank?

The glue had not even dried on his new office sign when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy delivered a major win for conservative and Tea Party groups. In a June interview with Fox News, McCarthy said that he would let the Export-Import Bank die. "It’s going to take hard earned money so others do things that the private sector can do," he insisted. From the Club for Growth to Heritage Action to the rec centers where Tea Party activists had been told why they should care about this, there was much celebration.

Just a month later, the momentum seemed to halt. Tennessee Rep. Stephen Fincher, one of the Tea Party's first celebrities for his journey from "gospel-singing farmer" to congressman, used his role on the House Financial Services Committee to save Ex-Im with a short-term deal. Today, Fincher hopped onto a phone call organized by the Exporters for Ex-Im Coalition to insist that McCarthy was coming back into the light, possibly before the June 30 deadline by which the bank needs to be reauthorized.