WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) today co-chaired a Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing on Small Business Administration (SBA) lending for COVID-19 relief loan programs, where she highlighted the ways these programs were exploited by bad actors, and the economic impact that record levels of federal spending have had on inflation and Iowa’s small businesses. Ernst pressed the SBA on the amount of fraudulent loans made, efforts to recover these funds and how she can work with the agency to ensure this does not happen again in the future.
Click here or the image above for Senator Ernst’s full comments.
“We now know that fraudsters have taken millions and millions from the SBA in fraudulent loans from this program.” Senator Ernst said during the hearing. “Still to date, SBA has not initiated an investigation into this matter, or made any effort to recover the inappropriate funds.”
Ernst went on to say: “It is extremely important to protect the integrity of the access to capital programs that are intended to provide support to small businesses from fraud and inappropriate distributions… I look forward to working together in the future to ensure that taxpayers’ money is protected from fraud and from this evil the actors bear responsibility.”
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