Some say that there are good reasons to continue doing this. They say that the bank, known as the Ex-Im Bank, promotes U.S. exports, protects jobs and is a good deal for taxpayers. None of these arguments withstand scrutiny. For instance, we have long known that export-subsidy schemes like Ex-Im do not meaningfully improve national exports. The data confirm this point: Ex-Im backs less than 2 percent of U.S. exports each year, mostly to the benefit of giant companies like Boeing and Caterpillar.

Also, while the bank takes credit for supporting 205,000 jobs in 2013, we should view this number with a critical eye. For instance, the Government Accounting Office criticized the bank’s job calculation methodology for failing to consider how many jobs would have been created without Ex-Im, among other flaws.

[GALLERY: Cartoons on the Economy]

The same doubts apply to the bank’s claim that it benefits taxpayers. A recent nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report debunks claims of future Ex-Im profitability. Ex-Im is projected to yield losses for taxpayers over the next decade.

However, the real problem with Ex-Im pertains to the many groups who are affected by Ex-Im activities but have been ignored so far. These people don’t have connections in Washington, and they don’t have access to press offices and lobbyists. But they matter, too.

It is difficult, but extremely important, that we consider the unseen costs of political privilege, whether they take the form of market distortions, resource misallocation, job losses, destroyed potential or higher prices.

Think about it this way; Ex-Im supporters tout subsidized firms’ successes, but they do not consider the unseen costs imposed on everyone else involved with the other 98 percent of unsubsidized exports. In these cases, it is the firms’ own federal government — not a foreign government — that puts them at a competitive disadvantage.

For instance, Ex-Im harms these firms’ export opportunities by making it harder for unsubsidized buyers to secure their own financing. That’s because Ex-Im gives lenders an incentive to shift resources away from unsubsidized projects and towards subsidized ones, regardless of the merits of each project.

[READ: Should Congress Kill the Export-Import Bank?]

These capital market distortions have ripple effects. Subsidized projects attract more private capital while investors overlook other worthy projects. The subsidized get richer while the unsubsidized get poorer or go out of business.

Unfortunately, we’ll never see the businesses that could have been. Perhaps they would have been better, more efficient or more responsible than politically connected firms. But how about the negative impact the bank has on jobs? Unsubsidized employers may not expand hiring, or may not increase wages, or may even have to fire employees because they face Ex-Im subsidized competition.

Now, even assuming that the bank doesn’t immediately cost money to taxpayers, they too are unseen victims. The Ex-Im Bank transfers risk away from lenders and towards every single U.S. taxpayer. This creates what economists call a moral hazard. Since well-connected lenders, like Citibank and JP Morgan, bear almost none of the risk if a borrower defaults, they have less incentive to apply transaction oversight. They collect high fees on billion-dollar loans in good times, but normal tax-paying Americans must pick up the tab in bad times.

We all know who will benefit if the bank is reauthorized, because the beneficiaries are few enough in number that they can effectively organize and are wealthy enough to apply significant political pressure. But it is about time someone stands up for the many unseen costs imposed by the Ex-Im Bank on millions of average Americans. These forgotten Americans should not matter less than Boeing or GE or Caterpillar.



