Torres on PPP: Small Businesses are Still Waiting
POMONA – Congresswoman Norma J. Torres (CA-35) today responded to news that the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a $350 billion program included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help small businesses make payroll during the economic downturn, is out of funds.
"It is beyond alarming that the PPP loan program is already dry – my community, and working-class communities just like it all across this country, are still waiting for the support they were promised," Rep. Torres said. "I'm hearing the same feedback from small business owner after small business owner: they can't get through. They can't get the aid they need and were promised. These funds were intended, and are desperately needed, to keep American workers afloat – not to line the pockets of the well-connected."
News of the fund's depletion comes after the Trump Administration took unprecedented steps to limit transparency and oversight of the CARES Act.
"Congress passed this emergency relief in good faith, and we need some assurances that it wasn't immediately exploited by this president and his friends in the banking sector," Torres continued. "As word spreads about banks prioritizing profits over people, and about the dramatic disparity from state to state in the number of loans provided, the American people are right to be outraged. We need to see the data and know exactly who received loans, the criteria those decisions were based on, and why it is that so many small businesses appear left out while large corporations were not.
"The taxpayers deserve answers, and our small business owners deserve a president who will faithfully negotiate with Democrats to add more money to the PPP and ensure those funds go to the people who actually need it"