More than $200 billion may have been stolen from two large COVID-19 relief initiatives. That’s according to new estimates from a federal watchdog investigating federally funded programs designed to help small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years.
This was by the criminal Trump administration’s design.
I remember the debate for oversight in 2020. Democrats wanted money to go to an agency with accountability. Republicans did not.
No it was not - it was done too fast with too little oversight and lots of trust in the good nature of the people.
Trump removes inspector general overseeing $2 trillion coronavirus relief package days after he was appointed: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/07/coronavirus-relief-trump-removes-inspector-general-overseeing-2-trillion-package.html
Inspectors general warn that Trump administration is blocking scrutiny of coronavirus rescue programs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/15/inspector-general-oversight-mnuchin-cares-act/
No, no, no! You don’t understand!! It was done too fast with too little oversight and lots of trust in the good nature of the people!!!
/s
Literally what the new York times said but ok. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/podcasts/the-daily/pandemic-fraud.html
It’s making the vein in my forehead pulse trying to reconcile the terms “Trump” and “trust and good nature”.
These are COVID-EIDL and PPP “loans”, which were forgiven if you didn’t fire anyone. EIDL had $15,000 worth of advances which didn’t need to be repaid if you claimed you were in a low income area.
SBA’s funding was cut by Bush Jr. in 2001.. Obama tried to boost it in 2010.
A lot of that funding was diverted from their staff so there was no infrastructure to vett the recipients claims.
That’s a borderline smoking gun for me.
Too little oversight you say?
Remember that time when Dems would only vote to pass this with the condition of oversight? We even had someone ready to do the oversight!
And then Trump fired them, oops definitely not intentional
Trusting human nature was the first mistake.
“Little oversight” can be a design choice.
This response is mistaken. See icydefiance comment.
That and that fact that they wrote the bill in such a way that McDonalds was considered a small buisness means actual small businesses got very little
To be fair, McDucks is mostly franchises with fewer than 20 employees. Corporate is mostly just the supply infrastructure and licensing.
And land.
LOL what?? That’s insane
I mean but it isn’t. Its weird but if you are at least semi familiar with the concept of a feudalism its a closeish example. Every franchise owner who basically pay MickyDs to use the branding as long as they pay a cut to the corporate (the King/emperor of the MickyD’s kingdom) and all these franchisee are just their own counts/countesses of their own demesne with orders coming from the king and them paying a tax to the king, meaning they all are just small businesses (as weird as that sounds) using the branding of Mcdonalds and popularity of it to drag in customers. This is also ignoring the fact that many of these fast food shops were able to stay open with very minor interruption with their workflow besides closing down their main dining rooms and that is the far larger problem at hand. Why should a company who may be slightly affected by these lockdowns be paid for still being able to operate if not making even more money than prior.
I like your analogy.
We had a restaurant in Deforest Wisconsin take almost a half million in COVID funds only to close up shop, and then try to blame Biden and the governor for closing the restaurant.
All this, while actual small businesses couldn’t even get funding, during the first round, because the banks had already given all their allocated money to their friends and “whale” customers, BEFORE the application went live online.
I went through this during first round. Then once FinTech finally opened up, some people had better luck, BUT there were some of us that couldn’t get the first round at all because they hadn’t accounted for certain business structures in regards to paperwork.
I was a giant shitshow setup by trump to give money to the people that didn’t need it.
A lot from senators. But I know quite a few small business owners that suddenly had new homes and still let people go… sad
I don’t think they’re even counting those guys - “rich people with legitimate businesses who didn’t actually need the money” - as fraud; this mostly seems to be a lot of fake / foreign businesses.
I die a bit inside every time someone tells me we can’t afford student debt relief, but somehow we can afford this level of corruption.
The bigger problem with student debt relief is that it doesn’t solve the problem of how that debt is generated in the first place. By all means we should forgive a bunch of federal student debt, even buy out private student loans, but the problem will just start building up again until we’re in an untenable debt situation again in the future. It’s kicking the can down the road, the same complaint that a lot of people in favor of student debt relief have about the US debt ceiling discussion.
The perverse economic incentives right now push lenders to loan out as much as possible, and that drives cost bloat at the university level as they expand their cost structure to capture more and more of the available money lent out for education. What I’d like to see is debt relief paired with actual fixes, such as making student debt (either private or both federal and private) dischargeable by bankruptcy.
Dealing with one problem doesn’t mean the other can’t also be dealt with after. Small steps are good; not everything has to be all or nothing.
Biden has two “band-aid” fixes that I’m aware of.
The first as you mentioned is the student debt relief which doesn’t address the root cause of the problem that colleges can charge exorbitant fees to 17 year olds who have no concept of financial responsibility.
The other band-aid is the pardoning of non-violent marijuana offenders. I’m all for these people getting their lives back but it’s 2023 and marijuana is still fucking illegal in the United States even though most of its citizens and most of its states have decided that it shouldn’t be illegal.
I don’t get Biden. He talks a big game but he can’t seem to make any meaningful changes because he’s too busy losing the gun control war.
Wow. That is such an insane number.
Shocked Pikachu face
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