Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is one of a kind. He is the only self-proclaimed socialist in Congress, and he is also the only Democratic candidate in the presidential race to oppose crony programs such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Hillary Clinton, a big supporter of the bank, and Sanders clashed quite vigorously on the issue during the recent presidential debate in Flint, Michigan.

The Export-Import Bank is an outfit that mostly extends loans to powerful foreign companies in exchange for buying products from large and well-connected U.S. companies. As Sanders asked Clinton, "Do you know what the other name of the Export-Import Bank is, what it's called in Washington? It's called the Bank of Boeing because Boeing itself gets 40 percent of the money discharged by the Export-Import Bank." Sanders is right.

Moreover, close to 70 percent of the bank's loan guarantees benefit Boeing alone. In spite of what most Democrats in Congress try to argue, the Ex-Im Bank is indeed in the "big business" business, with about 65 percent of its activities benefiting 10 domestic firms. The same is true for the bank's beneficiaries abroad. The Ex-Im Bank's own data show that such wealthy companies as Mexican state-owned oil giant Pemex and the airline Emirates are the top beneficiaries of the U.S. taxpayers' largesse.

Read the full article at Reason.com: Bernie Sanders Is Right to Trash the Ex-Im Bank