Representative Rob Andrews (D-NJ) recently introduced H.R. 387, the OPIC Termination Act. Begun in 1971, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is a government agency formed to provide project financing, investment insurance, and other services for American businesses so that they can operate risk-free in developing nations where investment environments may be perilous.

The very name of this agency cleverly misleads. OPIC is not "private," but government; it is not a "corporation" in the real sense, but a non-taxpaying federal bureaucracy feeding at the public trough; and its greatest beneficiaries aren't "overseas," but right here in corporate America. It ought to be renamed the Government Agency for Subsidizing Big Annual Givers (GASBAG) inasmuch as the corporations receiving OPIC subsidies are among the largest donors to federal re-election campaigns.

Last September, Representative John Kasich (R-OH), a leader of the move to abolish OPIC, listed some of the projects that received OPIC funding: "We developed a soft drink bottling company in Poland and in Ghana, a travel agency in Armenia. We have magazine publishing in Russia, a lumber mill in Lithuania, a shrimp farm in Ecuador, pension management in Colombia, a hotel in Ukraine, and 16 restaurants in Argentina."

To that list Representative Rob Andrews (D-NJ) added a luxury hotel in Jamaica, a banana plantation in Costa Rica, and an art gallery in Haiti. He pointed to the impact on American jobs from OPIC's use of taxpayers' money to build foreign manufacturing bases. OPIC's proponents claim its activity stimulates exports and Andrews agrees, but Andrews insists that jobs are the major exports -- out of the United States. He told his House colleagues: "In 1994, Kimberly-Clark obtained $9.27 million from OPIC; the same year the Labor Department certified that 600 of Kimberly-Clark's U.S. employees were adversely affected. Similarly, Levi-Strauss obtained $41.8 million in OPIC insurance, while the government stated that 100 Levi-Strauss workers in the United States were hurt."

Eleanor Holmes Norton, non-voting House delegate from Washington, DC, pointed out that "OPIC pays no taxes, pays no dividends, and two-thirds of its income comes from Treasury securities...." Concerning OPIC's negative impact on American jobs she cited the following figures: "Let me take four of the large OPIC users: Ford, minus 160,000 jobs here; Exxon, minus 83,000 jobs here; AT&T, minus 127,000 jobs here; General Electric, minus 185,000 jobs here." Certainly not all of these job losses can be attributed entirely to OPIC programs, but some surely can.

Other corporate fat cats benefiting from OPIC's loans and loan guarantees include DuPont, Coca Cola, Union Carbide, Motorola, Ford, McDonald's, US West, PepsiCo, and Citicorp. In 1995, while piling up a net income of $3.5 billion and making a major donation to the Council on Foreign Relations (a practice also followed by numerous other OPIC beneficiaries), Citicorp tapped OPIC for $342 million in investment insurance.

Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) correctly noted that OPIC's corporate recipients earn a private profit while any default involving OPIC-insured activity becomes a public obligation: "A private profit and a public loss -- that's socialism for the rich."

OPIC frees large corporations to invest -- at no risk to themselves -- in countries carrying D-minus or worse credit ratings. OPIC proponents insist that virtually all of its loans have been repaid and there have been almost no insurance claims to honor. But Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) countered that OPIC operates exactly like the federal agency that stood behind the savings and loan industry in that they both "sold the full faith and credit of the U.S. government." He reminded colleagues that no one worried about having to make good on huge savings and loan losses. A failed OPIC, Royce stated, would cost taxpayers about $25 billion.

Unfortunately, many of the congressmen criticizing OPIC and calling for its demise still believe that direct foreign aid is acceptable. Few seem to realize that nearly all of the money the federal government spends is on unconstitutional ventures. In fact, then-Representative Jan Meyers (R-KS) ludicrously maintained of OPIC: "It is ... the government performing its legitimate function of assisting American citizens in their dealings with foreign countries." Legitimate function? Similarly, Representative Douglas Bereuter (R-NE) declared that because "Japan supports over 36 percent of its total exports with some form of export credit," OPIC must do likewise and even be expanded. And Representative Lee Hamilton (D-IN) claimed that "OPIC supports U.S. foreign policy interests ... in countries whose economic success is in our national interest." All such political posturing is pure balderdash!

The bottom line is that OPIC is a federal welfare program enabling huge U.S. corporations to pursue projects in foreign countries that they wouldn't dare touch if they were forced to use their own money. In addition, none of OPIC's congressional opponents questioned OPIC's possible links to corporate campaign giving. Is it possible that OPIC's corporate beneficiaries have been funneling some of the federal funds back into various re-election efforts?

H.R. 387 should be supported as a primary step toward reinforcing long-dormant constitutional limitations on the federal government.