Over 100 Days Since PPP Expired, Still No New Relief For Businesses

Last week, reporting showed that Wellshire Financial Services, part of a multi-state title loan business run by major Trump donor Rod Aycox, received a $25 million low-interest loan from the Federal Reserve’s Main Street Lending Program (MSLP). On a note of stunning hypocrisy, Wellshire’s five-year MSLP loan came with a 3.15 percent interest rate — while the loans the company dishes out to consumers can come as high as 350 percent annually.   

 While millions in taxpayer funds are wasted due to the Paycheck Protection Program’s (PPP) mismanagement and lack of transparency, small businesses, especially in communities of color, are begging lawmakers for a new stimulus bill. Meanwhile, as we await the judge-ordered release of the remaining PPP recipients, new reporting reveals that the fossil fuel industry “feasted on COVID-19 relief programs.”  

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OVER 100 DAYS SINCE PPP EXPIRED, STILL NO NEW RELIEF BILL TO SAVE SMALL BUSINESSES 

EcoWatch | Fossil Fuel Industry Feasted on COVID-19 Relief Programs, Report Reveals  

Capital Gazette | Mike O’Halloran: Get it done Congress before small business shut their doors forever | COMMENTARY 

Bklyner | Brooklyn Businesses Worry They Won’t Make It Through Another Shutdown Without More Help  

WFAE | Charlotte Black Businesses In Peril 

The Hill | Women business owners are contributing to our economic recovery: Give them what they need 

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SBA MISMANAGEMENT CONTINUES WHILE PPP FRAUD GROWS   

Chicago Tribune | Naperville man charged in scheme to illegally obtain coronavirus relief aid to benefit small businesses 

Portland Business Journal | Judge denies request for stay, rules SBA must release detailed PPP information 

@Zachary | “The SBA just gave lenders instructions on how to process the new “loan necessity” questionnaires for PPP loans $2 million and larger. It took a month — until the night before Thanksgiving — for the SBA to do this after the forms first started circulating without explanation” [View Tweet] 

Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists | PPP Fraud: A Look Back at the CARES Act 

Mahwah-Ramsey Daily Voice | NJ COVID-19 Scammer Pocketed $1.8M In Taxpayer-Funded Rescue Loans, Feds Charge 

Imperial Valley News | Four Members of Los Angeles-Based Fraud Ring Indicted for COVID-Relief Fraud  

Daily Herald | Naperville man charged in COVID-19 relief fraud scheme 

Texas Border Business | 16 Million Application Loan Fraud Connected to Covid-19 Relief, more than 80 fraudulent Loans