Speaker 1: It's Thursday, July nine. I'm Oscar Amrrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Who is getting all the money? The Small Business Association
Speaker 1: and the Treasury Department have released the names of more
Speaker 1: than six hundred and sixty thousand businesses that received money
Speaker 1: from the Paycheck Protection Program. The program has given payouts
Speaker 1: to lawmaker connected businesses including car dealerships, casinos, construction companies,
Speaker 1: and restaurants. Nicholas wou, politics reporter at USA Today, joins
Speaker 1: us for more on the p p P. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, Nicholas, Thanks so much for having me so.
Speaker 1: The Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department have released
Speaker 1: the names of more than six hundred and sixty businesses
Speaker 1: that received between one hundred and fifty thousand or up
Speaker 1: to the ten million dollar maximum for the Paycheck Protection Program.
Speaker 1: In total, they say they dispatched more than five hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty one billion dollars to nearly four point nine
Speaker 1: million in businesses since early April. I think they said
Speaker 1: that healthcare and I T services were among the biggest
Speaker 1: recipients in all of this, But as we are looking
Speaker 1: into the businesses that have gotten some of this money.
Speaker 1: We're starting to find connections to people in Congress. We're
Speaker 1: starting to find connections to some very wealthy businesses. I
Speaker 1: think Kanye West, his company was also a recipient of
Speaker 1: all this. So help us break some of this down, Nicholas,
Speaker 1: who's getting all of this money? This was a massive
Speaker 1: data dump. There's over six hundred sixty names, and that's
Speaker 1: just in the businesses that we got all the names
Speaker 1: for UH and these were the businesses that got over
Speaker 1: one hundred fifty thousand dollars in loans, but the great
Speaker 1: majority of the loans given we're actually for under that amount,
Speaker 1: and all the names were redacted for those. So it's
Speaker 1: a wide range of businesses here, everything from you know,
Speaker 1: your mom and pop kind of restaurants and stores up
Speaker 1: to UH some businesses that were franchises of major corporations,
Speaker 1: to yes, the yacht clubs and the wineries and the
Speaker 1: businesses that are connected to members of Congress. Obviously, this
Speaker 1: is to help get people through the coronavirus shutdowns, But
Speaker 1: what do the people have to do to apply and
Speaker 1: successfully get a loan? So it was kind of a
Speaker 1: tricky process. So that the idea was to provide forgivable
Speaker 1: loans to small businesses in order to keep all of
Speaker 1: their employees on through the coronavirus pandemic. And the criteria
Speaker 1: was that you needed to have five hundred or fewer
Speaker 1: workers and you could get a low interest loan of
Speaker 1: up to ten million dollars. And originally, as it was written,
Speaker 1: a lot of franchises of major corporations were eligible because
Speaker 1: the total number of employees you had was counted by
Speaker 1: the individual business unit, not as part of the overall,
Speaker 1: you know, large corporation that is something like McDonald's. So
Speaker 1: that caused a lot of controversy, but was changed once
Speaker 1: the program him was renewed. And so tell us some
Speaker 1: of the big names that we're getting some money in this.
Speaker 1: As mentioned the beginning, there was a lot of lawmaker
Speaker 1: connected businesses that received some of this money. What we
Speaker 1: noticed as as we're going through the data is that
Speaker 1: some of these businesses are connected to some of the
Speaker 1: wealthiest members of Congress, and a lot of these members
Speaker 1: do own small businesses on the side too. So for instance,
Speaker 1: we noticed everyone from Congressman Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, whose
Speaker 1: car dealerships received at least three different loans between three
Speaker 1: hundred fifty thousand dollars each and one million dollars. Another Congressman,
Speaker 1: Kevin Earn from Oklahoma, whose compody that's held in the
Speaker 1: family trust, received loans for their McDonald's franchises. And UH
Speaker 1: Congressman Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania. His wife has partnered at
Speaker 1: a law firm and they received a loan somewhere between
Speaker 1: three hundred fifty thou dollars and one million. The Treasury
Speaker 1: Department gave us dollar amounts in terms of ranges, not
Speaker 1: in terms of specific amounts. There's not anybody that's been
Speaker 1: accused of any wrongdoing in any of this. This is
Speaker 1: just kind of throwing out the names of basically people
Speaker 1: who have gotten some of these loans. There are the
Speaker 1: names of the business is, not of the specific people,
Speaker 1: so it was it was kind of tricky to actually
Speaker 1: trace all of them back to who actually owned all
Speaker 1: of these what's been the overall reception of this program,
Speaker 1: because I know that there's been a few problems early
Speaker 1: on in the beginning, there's a lot of businesses that
Speaker 1: complained that they didn't get anything any money out of this,
Speaker 1: But it does seem to have helped a vast variety
Speaker 1: of businesses get through some of these shutdowns, or at
Speaker 1: least try to get through some of the shutdowns. It's
Speaker 1: something that we saw, especially with these businesses owned or
Speaker 1: linked to lawmakers, was that they emphasize that they were
Speaker 1: able to keep on staff for the duration of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So this was a very popular program, and it was
Speaker 1: still popular in fact, then it ran out of money
Speaker 1: at first because so many people needed the funding. Where
Speaker 1: the controversy comes in is what order people might have
Speaker 1: gotten funds in, whether there was any special preference because
Speaker 1: of connections people had, or in the case of some
Speaker 1: companies like those controlled by the governor of West Virginia,
Speaker 1: UM the governor there is a billionaire and he also
Speaker 1: owns a very large resort complex in the state, which
Speaker 1: received let's see, between five to ten million dollars worth
Speaker 1: of loans. So that's where we're seeing some of the
Speaker 1: backlash to the p p P program, and it will
Speaker 1: be interesting to see what Congress does with it the
Speaker 1: next time it comes up for renewal. It's been extended
Speaker 1: through August eight. I guess there's still got a few
Speaker 1: billion to go through or to allocate. When is this
Speaker 1: going to come up again? Well, Congress's own recess right now,
Speaker 1: but they'll come back at the end of July, and
Speaker 1: they've given themselves a very short window to try to
Speaker 1: draft and allocate money for a potential next coronavirus stimulus bill.
Speaker 1: So we'll see exactly what happens there. But as the
Speaker 1: corona as pandemic continues and as businesses across the country
Speaker 1: remained shuttered, um it, it looks like this could still
Speaker 1: very much be a major issue. Nicholas wou politics reporter
Speaker 1: at USA Today. Thank you very much for joining us,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
Speaker 1: has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big news stories.
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