According to Section 3(d)(4) of the Ex-Im Bank’s charter, the purpose of the Advisory Committee is to advise the bank on its programs and inform Congress “on the extent to which the Bank is meeting its mandate to provide competitive financing to expand United States exports, and any suggestions for improvements in this regard.” The committee’s comments are to be submitted alongside the Ex-Im Bank’s periodic Report to the U.S. Congress on Global Export Credit Competition (Competitiveness Report), which itself is supposed to document the competition that US exporters face because of the financing provided by foreign export credit agencies.

Since the Era of Good Feelings is off the table, we now live in the political Era of the Binary Choice. Launched as part of the Flight 93 argument in support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election, this is the idea that there is no room for conscientious political objectors to sit out an election or cast a protest vote if they don’t like either of the major parties or candidates. Since one of those major parties is going to win, and since the stakes are unprecedentedly high (and they’re always unprecedentedly high), everyone has to choose one candidate or the other.