Freedom's Fire, Brightly Burning

Loan relief urged for hurricane-stricken small businesses

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in a press release urged Republican Congressional delegates to allow a vote on a bi-partisan small business hurricane relief package that is co-authored by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and Sen. David Vitter.

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According to Kerry's office, 75 percent of hurricane-related Small Business Administration disaster business loan applications have not even been processed, and only 7 percent of the approved business loans have been fully disbursed.

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The Small Business Hurricane Relief and Reconstruction Act, S. 1807, was first introduced in September and would allow the affected states to distribute $450 million in bridge loans to help businesses that are waiting for an SBA loan.

At a committee hearing last month, SBA Administrator Hector Barreto testified that the administration would not support that provision and instead unveiled the SBA's Gulf Opportunity Pilot Loan Program, the release says.

Only 10 of the SBA's new Gulf Opportunity loans had been distributed by last week.

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This news article is based on this press release from Dec. 12th.

Once again, we see how dedicated the Bush administration is to supporting small business - not much at all.