Sen. Cruz: Small businesses should expect 'bureaucratic hurdles' when applying for loans
Senator Ted Cruz, Joint Economic committee, discusses if additional stimulus measures are necessary and the challenges small businesses are facing
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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on “America’s Newsroom” on Monday that small business owners should expect “bureaucratic hurdles” when applying for the loans provided by the coronavirus relief package.
Host Ed Henry noted to Cruz that President Trump’s critics have said that the process of getting those loans hasn’t been smooth, with phone lines tied up and some banks moving slowly.
“We have appropriated $377 billion for emergency small business loans administered through the Small Business Administration, which in turn uses local banks, community banks to administer those loans,” Cruz explained.
He noted that it’s too soon to tell how the process is going since it just began on Friday.
“Are there going to be bureaucratic hurdles? Of course. Any gigantic government program is going to have bureaucratic hurdles, any $2 trillion bill is going to have significant problems,” he continued.
Last month, President Trump signed a more than $2 trillion legislative package to combat the coronavirus pandemic and send economic relief to workers and businesses squeezed by restrictions meant to stop the outbreak’s spread.
The legislation amounts to the costliest stimulus plan in U.S. history. It includes checks for most Americans, boosted unemployment aid, help for small business as well as a massive loan fund for corporations. On Friday, banks started administering the loans.
Small business owners started applying on Friday for the loans, which are designed to keep salons, restaurants and other such outfits open while retaining much of their workforce until the virus' spread abates and the economy can begin climbing back to normal.
Small businesses have been ravaged by the economic slowdown that followed the country's massive quarantining to prevent spread of the novel coronavirus; the quarantines have continued as the death toll from the virus mounts, increasing unemployment to levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Under the plan, small businesses can apply for federal subsidized, low-interest loans for the lesser of $10 million or a percentage of their payroll. The government will pay off the loans made by the bank in their entirety if the business maintains its workforce.
“Those small business loans are designed so that if you own a restaurant, or you own a bar, or a nail salon, or a hardware store, a movie theater, any small business with 500 employees or fewer, you can go to your local community bank, you can get an emergency loan and if you use that loan to pay for payroll and salary, to pay for rent or mortgage on your business or to pay for utilities, that loan is entirely forgivable,” Cruz said.
“It becomes a grant and that applies even if you've already furloughed your employees. You can hire them back and use those forgivable loan proceeds to pay paychecks. That’s designed to help get millions of people back in their job, back getting a paycheck.
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“We have to see,” Cruz continued, describing the small business loan program. “That will take weeks, if not a couple of months to see how it operates.”
Fox Business’ Charlie Gasparino and Lydia Moynihan contributed to this report.
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