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Federal Market Intelligence for Small Business |
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GOP Reps. fiercely critique SBA for actions under Trump’s watchTwo Republican lawmakers at a recent hearing vehemently expressed their frustrations with the Small Business Administration’s handling of COVID-19 emergency loans to small firms in 2020. It was unusual only because Republican President Donald Trump and his appointee Jovita Carranza were in charge of the SBA at the time. Lawmakers generally try to avoid condemning actions by leaders of their own political party. Discussion grew heated at the congressional hearing on Jan. 12 in which the SBA Inspector General gave an update on the potential $84 billion in fraud found in the COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program managed by the SBA. Between March 2020 and December 2020, SBA distributed $197 billion in EIDL loans. By October 2020, $78 billion already was flagged as possible fraud. The total later rose to $84 billion. “Your report found massive fraud!” Rep. Roger Williams, R-IL, said at the hearing. “This leads to a question of the ability of SBA to carry out or set up new programs in the future if they are unable to properly account for taxpayer dollars.” Rep. Pete Stauber, R-MN, turned up the volume even more. “$84 billion in taxpayer dollars!” Stauber said emphatically. “It should be important to everyone... that their hard-earned taxpayer dollars are not being stripped away to pay for fraud!” Neither lawmaker mentioned Trump or former SBA Administrator Carranza by name. In about an hour of hearing footage reviewed, those names were not spoken by anyone. If sound bites are released, it may not be clear who was in charge of preventing the possible frauds.
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