It’s private gain at the expense of public pain. Large companies in particular have taken a liking to it. In 2013, roughly 93 percent of the bank’s loan guarantees by value benefited only five companies — including Caterpillar, General Electric and other multinational corporations with hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in annual profits — according to the Mercatus Center, a research center at George Mason University. In 2012, 83 percent benefited a single company: Boeing. Ex-Im also has a long history of assisting state-owned companies across the globe. It argues that a loan to, say, the airline Emirates will benefit the American economy because the airline buys Boeing’s planes — but the loan also gives the airline a competitive advantage over its American rivals and transfers wealth to foreign states’ coffers.

With the bank’s charter now set to expire — it has been periodically renewed by Congress, most recently in 2014 — these special interests are desperate to keep Ex-Im alive.

Last month, the Exporters for Ex-Im Coalition organized a lobbying day on Capitol Hill, sharing a handout that claims the bank supports jobs and small businesses, and provides a service that no private lender would.

But their claims must be dissected. Most important: The bank does not weigh the jobs it supports against those it destroys. By providing loans to foreign companies that compete with domestic ones, Ex-Im is actively eliminating American jobs. Nor are the bank’s claims about being “critical” to small businesses justified. Overall, fewer than 1 percent of America’s small businesses receive support from the bank, according to the Mercatus Center. The other 99 percent are at a competitive disadvantage with the Ex-Im elite. As for those select few, the bank’s data show that small businesses received only 19 percent of its total financing in 2013. And even this is misleading: Ex-Im defines small businesses as those having up to around $21 million in revenue or up to 1,500 employees — 1,450 more than the Affordable Care Act’s definition.

Bank proponents will of course point to the few companies that can’t obtain private financing as evidence of a supposed market failure. But the private market’s refusal to finance some companies is a measure of its competency in evaluating risk. Federal bureaucrats often lack the same expertise or make decisions based on other criteria — see the four Ex-Im employees who last year were suspended or removed “amid investigations into allegations of gifts and kickbacks,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Given this record, the private market’s caution is wise, not wicked.