The PPP was created as part of the CARES Act and was sold as
a method for paying businesses through forgivable loans in order to keep
workers employed through the pandemic. Instead, it has served primarily as a
slush fund for big business and a money-printing service for the large banks
that service the loans, with previous disclosures revealing millions handed out
to major sports teams, multimillionaires and religious institutions, while
millions of workers were still laid off.
Bipartisan $908 billion “emergency relief framework” receives
support from Democratic congressional leadership
Democratic
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a joint
press conference on Wednesday released a statement signaling their support for
a bipartisan $908 billion “emergency relief framework” proposal that was first
revealed by Republican and Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus on
Monday. The caucus includes Democratic senators Joe Manchin (West Virginia),
Mark Warner (Virginia), and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), and Republican
senators Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Lisa Murkowski
(Alaska), Angus King (Maine), and Mitt Romney (Utah).
The proposed four-month “emergency relief package” is another
gift to big business and Wall Street and is less than half of the $2.2 trillion package the
Democrats had passed before the November election and roughly $800 million less
than the $1.7 trillion deal previously offered by the White House. Most important
for the ruling class is the bill’s “temporary” liability shield for businesses
and other organizations against COVID-19–related lawsuits brought against them
by workers or customers who fell ill due to inadequate safety measures.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, left, and Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive to testify before a House Financial Services
Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020. (Jim
Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)
Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell however has already poured cold water on the
proposal, instead sticking to the $550 billion package he has been pushing for
and that has already been agreed upon by President Donald Trump.
“In
the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by
Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan,
bicameral negotiations,” Schumer and Pelosi said in their joint statement
Wednesday, signaling their support for the bill.
The announcement of the proposal came Tuesday during testimony
by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
before the Senate Banking Committee. Both Powell and Mnuchin expressed support
for the proposal, with Powell stating that it “sounds like you’re hitting a lot
of the areas that could definitely benefit from the help.” Mnuchin stated he
looked “...forward to reviewing with you the overall package. I do think that
more fiscal response is needed.”
Five
months after both political parties allowed enhanced unemployment benefits and
housing protections within the misnamed $2.2 trillion CARES Act to expire,
leading to food lines, evictions, and death, and less than four weeks
until some 12 million lose federal pandemic benefits, the latest murmurs of a
possible agreement that leaves out much-needed aid for millions of workers,
while protecting businesses from COVID-19–related lawsuits, epitomizes the
bipartisan disdain the ruling class has for the lives and safety of workers and
their families.
As with the CARES Act in March, the preliminary details reveal a
windfall for the financial oligarchy while a pittance is made available for the
majority of the population. The framework does not include another round of
$1,200 stimulus checks and reduces the enhanced $600 unemployment benefit,
which expired at the end of July, to a miserly $300 week.
Left
unmentioned in the proposal is the fate of two key emergency economic relief
programs—the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, which provides
benefits to so-called “gig” workers and the self-employed, and the Pandemic
Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which provides benefits to
those who have already exhausted their state benefits. Combined, the two
programs account for nearly 13 million of the over 20 million people currently
receiving some unemployment compensation, and both expire on December 26, the
day after Christmas.
The legislation also does not include any renter or mortgage
protections, leaving some 30 million people in the US facing eviction in the
next two months. The eviction of millions of people and their families with the
virus spreading out of control will lead to hundreds of thousands of infections
and tens of thousands of additional deaths, with Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield already predicting that the US
COVID-19 death toll could reach 450,000 by February. Redfield warned that this
winter could be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this
nation”
Hailing
the $908 billion figure as a “good middle ground” that “hits the major
elements,” Democratic Illinois Senator Dick Durbin lent his support to the bill
while offering mild criticism of the immunity from liability protections
included in the bill, before adding that he didn’t want the liability issue to
hold up the bill: “I want to make sure that we pass this COVID-19 bill, as the
group has brought together, or something like it, for $908 billion, we
shouldn’t be delayed or diverted from this effort over a debate for immunity
for liability. It’s an important issue but 38 states have already enacted laws
related to COVID-19 liability, the others can certainly do it if they wish.”
Of
the proposed $908 billion, the bulk of the money in the proposal, $288 billion,
is earmarked to the Small Business Administration, primarily to refill the
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
The PPP was created as part of the CARES Act and was sold as a
method for paying businesses through forgivable loans in order to keep workers
employed through the pandemic. Instead, it has served primarily as a slush fund
for big business and a money-printing service for the large banks that service
the loans, with previous disclosures revealing millions handed out to major
sports teams, multimillionaires and religious institutions, while millions of
workers were still laid off. For small businesses that attempted to obtain a loan, the
shifting guidelines and paperwork proved a hurdle too high for many, unlike
major corporations with dedicated teams of lawyers and accountants who were
able to navigate the government bureaucracy.
On
Tuesday, the Washington Post revealed through a Freedom of
Information Act request and lawsuit against the Treasury Department, that of
the more than 5 million loans that have been processed so far under the PPP,
more than half of the $522 billion allocated went to just 5 percent of the
recipients. The top 1 percent of loans accounted for more than a
quarter of all the loan value, approximately 28 percent.
The data showed that roughly 600 large companies received the
maximum loan amount allowed under the program, $10 million. Some of the
companies that received $10 million loans were the parent companies of major
restaurant chains such as Uno Pizzeria & Grill, Boston Market and Legal Sea
Foods.
Following
the nearly $300 billion earmarked for the PPP, the next largest item in the
framework is the estimated $180 billion for additional unemployment insurance.
Under the current proposal, which is unsettled, the unemployment eligibility
window would be increased by 13 weeks, allowing workers to claim through March
31, although it is unclear if they would be able to backdate claims.
The
third highest figure—an estimated $160 billion—is reserved for state, local and
tribal governments, which have seen their tax revenues evaporate due to
pandemic-induced lockdowns and restrictions. The funding is more than $270
billion less than the $436 billion Pelosi had previously demanded in the $2.2
trillion package.
Another
notable figure in the bill is the $45 billion set aside for transportation. The
pandemic has decimated public transit, leaving several major cities to
consider, or already implement, drastic cuts, including the New York
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is threatening to lay off 9,300
workers.
The
Chicago Transit Authority is also facing a $375 million budget shortfall in
2021, while Denver’s Regional Transportation District passed a budget in
mid-November that included $140 million in spending cuts and the elimination of
400 jobs through layoffs and attrition, along with wage reductions and
furloughs.
However,
according to Senator Warner’s office, of the $45 billion earmarked for transportation,
only $15 billion is for mass transit, with $1 billion for Amtrak and $8 billion
for the bus industry, leaving $21 billion for the airlines, which already
received $25 billion through the CARES Act and still went ahead with
furloughing more than 40,000 aviation industry workers.
Ossoff, Whose Father Took $1 Mil from Gov’t
Relief Fund, Slams Greedy Business Owners for Raiding PPP
GA Dem's
millionaire father has given campaign thousands, owns private jet
Jon Ossoff / Getty Images
DECATUR, Ga.—Georgia Democratic Senate hopeful
Jon Ossoff said Paycheck Protection Program funds were "raided by larger
companies" without mentioning that his wealthy father's company received
as much as $1 million through the program.
"[Republicans] don't care about small
businesses. And as we saw, the PPP funds were raided by larger companies,"
Ossoff said during a Wednesday-morning campaign event in Decatur.
The Democrat said nothing about his father
Richard Ossoff's involvement in the program. The elder Ossoff's Atlanta-based
company, Strafford Publications, received between $350,000
and $1 million from the PPP on June 9. The company—which collects an estimated
$28 million in annual revenue—has amassed Ossoff's father a sizable fortune
that allowed him to purchase a private plane in 2014.
Ossoff's father has been a major driver of the
Georgia Democrat's political career, contributing more than $17,000 to
his son's campaigns since 2017 and nearly $150,000 to other federal Democrats
since 2002. Ossoff's father also footed
the bill for
his son's Washington, D.C., residence while Ossoff worked as a congressional
aide to Rep. Hank Johnson (D., Ga.), and Ossoff used a large family inheritance
to purchase control of his foreign film company in 2013.
Ossoff on Wednesday also noted that the PPP's
reauthorization has been "blocked since late summer," saying that
securing a second round of small business loans through the program "goes
back to who has power." In October, however, Senate Democrats shot
down a
standalone measure allocating $258 billion in PPP funds, as the proposal did
not include larger economic relief. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.,
N.Y.) called the measure a "political stunt," sparking criticism from
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (D., Ky.).
"The Democratic leaders have spent months
holding out for a long far-left wish list of non-COVID related priorities and
restricting additional aid until they get it," McConnell said.
"There's no reason the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program
should wait another single day."
Democrats also voted
against GOP
coronavirus stimulus packages that included PPP funding in September and
October.
Ossoff is running to unseat Republican Sen.
David Perdue in Georgia's January 5 runoff. The Democrat on Wednesday
criticized Perdue for having "no sense of what ordinary people are going
through" but did not discuss his family's wealth and its impact on his
political career. Perdue has labeled Ossoff a "trust fund socialist who
lives off his family's money."
Tom Brady’s Company
Received More Than $960,000 in PPP Loans
5 Dec 2020246
1:36
According
to data from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Tom Branutrition and
sports performance company, TB 12, collected $960,855 from the federal
government in the form of PPP loans.
According to CNBC:
TB12 Inc., based in
Massachusetts, received the loan on April 15, 2020, as
part of the small business lending program created under the $2 trillion CARES
Act passed by Congress and the Trump administration in March. The loan was
processed by Cambridge Savings Bank.
Brady, a former quarterback for the New England Patriots of the
NFL, started TB12 in 2013. He agreed to a two-year $50 million deal with the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers in March. The company announced in April plans to expand
in Tampa, Florida, New York and Los Angeles.
…
It’s unclear how
TB12 was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and how many jobs it
retained with the loan. CNBC has reached out to the company for comment.
TB12 is not the only fitness
company to have received government assistance during the pandemic. The Sports
Business Journal reports that over 500 fitness
and sports-related businesses received $150,000 or more from the SBA program.
Forbes reports that Tom Brady has made roughly $350 million
during his NFL career.
Companies Owned by This Billionaire Governor Received up to $24 Million in Bailout Loans
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and his family received
between $11 million and $24 million from a federal coronavirus economic relief
program. His luxury resort received up to $10 million, but did not promise to
retain jobs because of the loan.
by Ken Ward Jr.
An interior of The Greenbrier resort, one of several businesses owned by Jim Justice’s family. The Justice companies have received millions of dollars from a coronavirus economic relief program. (Craig Hudson, special to ProPublica)
Companies owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and his
family received up to $24 million from one of the federal government’s key
coronavirus economic relief programs, according to data made public Monday.
At least six companies from Justice’s empire showed up on the
list of Paycheck Protection Program aid recipients released by the Small
Business Administration.
The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation, Justice’s firm that owns
and operates the iconic luxury resort, received a loan of between $5 million
and $10 million.
That made it one of only nine companies in West Virginia to
receive a loan of that size. Treasury Department officials did not specify the
exact amount of the loans, and made public only the identities of companies
that received more than $150,000.
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In all, Justice companies received between $11.2 million and
$24.4 million in PPP money. The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a Justice company
that runs an upscale residential development adjacent to the hotel, received
between $1 million and $2 million.
Blackstone Energy LTD and Bluestone Coke LLC, two coal
companies owned by Justice’s family, each received $2 million to $5 million.
Ranger Fuel Coal Corp. received $1 million to $2 million. Justice Energy
Company Inc. received $150,000 to $350,000.
Justice’s companies received PPP money from a mixture of
small local banks and regional financial institutions. Previous reporting has
shown banks were favoring their existing, regular customers when processing PPP
applications.
Justice is ranked by Forbes as a billionaire and West
Virginia’s richest man. He owns a vast array of businesses, including coal
mines, resort hotels and agricultural interests, many of them regulated by the
state agencies he now runs.
The Justice business empire has also been sued dozens of
times for not paying bills. A ProPublica investigation found more than $128
million in judgments and settlements in such cases.
In the data released Monday, The Greenbrier listed “0” in a
column about the number of jobs that would be retained on account of the loan.
Under the PPP, loans don’t have to be repaid if businesses follow key parts of
the program, mostly using a certain percentage of the money — originally 75%,
but reduced to 60% — for payroll through Dec. 31.
“Under the guise of helping mom and pop shops on Main Street,
large companies got millions of dollars of government money, represented as
loans, but much of it will never be repaid,” said Aaron Klein, an economist at
the Brookings Institution who has been following the PPP.
During a COVID-19 media briefing last week, Justice
acknowledged that his businesses likely received PPP aid, though he said he
didn’t know how much. Like President Donald Trump, Justice said when he took
office that he would turn over the management of his companies to those adult
children. But, as ProPublica reported last year, Justice continues to guide his
business empire.
After complaints alleging lax reopening practices at Gov. Jim
Justice’s luxury resort, a kitchen employee has tested positive at the sports
club affiliated with the hotel. Officials at the venue are scrambling to be
ready for the July 4 weekend.
On Monday, when asked about the newly released data, Justice
again said he wasn’t sure of the amounts. But the governor added, “I encouraged
all businesses in our state to try to seek anything and everything that they
could possibly seek from the federal government in regards to loans.”
Justice said he believes West Virginia businesses have
received nearly $2 billion from the PPP program, adding, “And I welcome every
dollar of it.”
The new federal data shows that businesses owned by two of
Justice’s recent political rivals also received PPP loans.
The Thrasher Group Inc., an engineering firm, received $5
million to $10 million. It is owned by Woody Thrasher, who unsuccessfully
challenged Justice in the Republican primary this year. The government data
said the loan helped retain 441 jobs.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ben Salango’s law firm,
Preston & Salango, received $150,000 to $350,000. On Monday, Salango said
the loan — he said the exact amount was $183,500 — helped his firm avoid laying
off any employees or cutting their salaries or benefits. The federal data said
the loan to the firm retained 10 employees.
In addition to The Greenbrier, which listed zero jobs
retained, two other Justice companies left the field blank. The data for three
of Justice’s other companies listed a total of 406 jobs retained.
The Greenbrier and related entities employ about 1,600
people, according to court records. In related court filings, lawyers for The
Greenbrier have said the resort had already been pushed to “near financial
insolvency” because of a devastating flood in 2016.
The resort suffered additional losses when it was closed for
two months because of COVID-19, and West Virginia’s coal industry has been
battered by the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic.
Though the program has been criticized for some of the loan
recipients, particularly large, publicly traded companies, over all economists
praise the PPP for having gotten billions to companies out relatively quickly,
amid the sudden economic shock brought on by the pandemic.
Generally, the PPP loans are meant for small businesses, or
those with fewer than 500 employees. As of 2018, there were more than 114,000
such businesses in West Virginia. The data made public with business names
listed 2,300 loans to West Virginia businesses. The government also released a
list, without company names, of another 15,000 West Virginia businesses that
received loans of less than $150,000.
But, there is an exemption to that size limit for businesses
in the “accommodations and food services” sector.
Through their attorneys, Justice company representatives have not responded to ProPublica requests for more detailed comments about the PPP loans.
Bipartisan $908 billion “emergency relief framework” receives
support from Democratic congressional leadership
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a joint press conference on Wednesday released a statement signaling their support for a bipartisan $908 billion “emergency relief framework” proposal that was first revealed by Republican and Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus on Monday. The caucus includes Democratic senators Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Mark Warner (Virginia), and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), and Republican senators Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Angus King (Maine), and Mitt Romney (Utah).
The proposed four-month “emergency relief package” is another
gift to big business and Wall Street and is less than half of the $2.2 trillion package the
Democrats had passed before the November election and roughly $800 million less
than the $1.7 trillion deal previously offered by the White House. Most important
for the ruling class is the bill’s “temporary” liability shield for businesses
and other organizations against COVID-19–related lawsuits brought against them
by workers or customers who fell ill due to inadequate safety measures.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, left, and Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive to testify before a House Financial Services
Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020. (Jim
Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)
Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell however has already poured cold water on the
proposal, instead sticking to the $550 billion package he has been pushing for
and that has already been agreed upon by President Donald Trump.
“In
the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by
Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan,
bicameral negotiations,” Schumer and Pelosi said in their joint statement
Wednesday, signaling their support for the bill.
The announcement of the proposal came Tuesday during testimony
by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
before the Senate Banking Committee. Both Powell and Mnuchin expressed support
for the proposal, with Powell stating that it “sounds like you’re hitting a lot
of the areas that could definitely benefit from the help.” Mnuchin stated he
looked “...forward to reviewing with you the overall package. I do think that
more fiscal response is needed.”
Five
months after both political parties allowed enhanced unemployment benefits and
housing protections within the misnamed $2.2 trillion CARES Act to expire,
leading to food lines, evictions, and death, and less than four weeks
until some 12 million lose federal pandemic benefits, the latest murmurs of a
possible agreement that leaves out much-needed aid for millions of workers,
while protecting businesses from COVID-19–related lawsuits, epitomizes the
bipartisan disdain the ruling class has for the lives and safety of workers and
their families.
As with the CARES Act in March, the preliminary details reveal a
windfall for the financial oligarchy while a pittance is made available for the
majority of the population. The framework does not include another round of
$1,200 stimulus checks and reduces the enhanced $600 unemployment benefit,
which expired at the end of July, to a miserly $300 week.
Left
unmentioned in the proposal is the fate of two key emergency economic relief
programs—the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, which provides
benefits to so-called “gig” workers and the self-employed, and the Pandemic
Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which provides benefits to
those who have already exhausted their state benefits. Combined, the two
programs account for nearly 13 million of the over 20 million people currently
receiving some unemployment compensation, and both expire on December 26, the
day after Christmas.
The legislation also does not include any renter or mortgage
protections, leaving some 30 million people in the US facing eviction in the
next two months. The eviction of millions of people and their families with the
virus spreading out of control will lead to hundreds of thousands of infections
and tens of thousands of additional deaths, with Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield already predicting that the US
COVID-19 death toll could reach 450,000 by February. Redfield warned that this
winter could be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this
nation”
Hailing
the $908 billion figure as a “good middle ground” that “hits the major
elements,” Democratic Illinois Senator Dick Durbin lent his support to the bill
while offering mild criticism of the immunity from liability protections
included in the bill, before adding that he didn’t want the liability issue to
hold up the bill: “I want to make sure that we pass this COVID-19 bill, as the
group has brought together, or something like it, for $908 billion, we
shouldn’t be delayed or diverted from this effort over a debate for immunity
for liability. It’s an important issue but 38 states have already enacted laws
related to COVID-19 liability, the others can certainly do it if they wish.”
Of
the proposed $908 billion, the bulk of the money in the proposal, $288 billion,
is earmarked to the Small Business Administration, primarily to refill the
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
The PPP was created as part of the CARES Act and was sold as a
method for paying businesses through forgivable loans in order to keep workers
employed through the pandemic. Instead, it has served primarily as a slush fund
for big business and a money-printing service for the large banks that service
the loans, with previous disclosures revealing millions handed out to major
sports teams, multimillionaires and religious institutions, while millions of
workers were still laid off. For small businesses that attempted to obtain a loan, the
shifting guidelines and paperwork proved a hurdle too high for many, unlike
major corporations with dedicated teams of lawyers and accountants who were
able to navigate the government bureaucracy.
On
Tuesday, the Washington Post revealed through a Freedom of
Information Act request and lawsuit against the Treasury Department, that of
the more than 5 million loans that have been processed so far under the PPP,
more than half of the $522 billion allocated went to just 5 percent of the
recipients. The top 1 percent of loans accounted for more than a
quarter of all the loan value, approximately 28 percent.
The data showed that roughly 600 large companies received the
maximum loan amount allowed under the program, $10 million. Some of the
companies that received $10 million loans were the parent companies of major
restaurant chains such as Uno Pizzeria & Grill, Boston Market and Legal Sea
Foods.
Following
the nearly $300 billion earmarked for the PPP, the next largest item in the
framework is the estimated $180 billion for additional unemployment insurance.
Under the current proposal, which is unsettled, the unemployment eligibility
window would be increased by 13 weeks, allowing workers to claim through March
31, although it is unclear if they would be able to backdate claims.
The
third highest figure—an estimated $160 billion—is reserved for state, local and
tribal governments, which have seen their tax revenues evaporate due to
pandemic-induced lockdowns and restrictions. The funding is more than $270
billion less than the $436 billion Pelosi had previously demanded in the $2.2
trillion package.
Another
notable figure in the bill is the $45 billion set aside for transportation. The
pandemic has decimated public transit, leaving several major cities to
consider, or already implement, drastic cuts, including the New York
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is threatening to lay off 9,300
workers.
The
Chicago Transit Authority is also facing a $375 million budget shortfall in
2021, while Denver’s Regional Transportation District passed a budget in
mid-November that included $140 million in spending cuts and the elimination of
400 jobs through layoffs and attrition, along with wage reductions and
furloughs.
However,
according to Senator Warner’s office, of the $45 billion earmarked for transportation,
only $15 billion is for mass transit, with $1 billion for Amtrak and $8 billion
for the bus industry, leaving $21 billion for the airlines, which already
received $25 billion through the CARES Act and still went ahead with
furloughing more than 40,000 aviation industry workers.
Ossoff, Whose Father Took $1 Mil from Gov’t
Relief Fund, Slams Greedy Business Owners for Raiding PPP
GA Dem's
millionaire father has given campaign thousands, owns private jet
Jon Ossoff / Getty Images
DECATUR, Ga.—Georgia Democratic Senate hopeful
Jon Ossoff said Paycheck Protection Program funds were "raided by larger
companies" without mentioning that his wealthy father's company received
as much as $1 million through the program.
"[Republicans] don't care about small
businesses. And as we saw, the PPP funds were raided by larger companies,"
Ossoff said during a Wednesday-morning campaign event in Decatur.
The Democrat said nothing about his father
Richard Ossoff's involvement in the program. The elder Ossoff's Atlanta-based
company, Strafford Publications, received between $350,000
and $1 million from the PPP on June 9. The company—which collects an estimated
$28 million in annual revenue—has amassed Ossoff's father a sizable fortune
that allowed him to purchase a private plane in 2014.
Ossoff's father has been a major driver of the
Georgia Democrat's political career, contributing more than $17,000 to
his son's campaigns since 2017 and nearly $150,000 to other federal Democrats
since 2002. Ossoff's father also footed
the bill for
his son's Washington, D.C., residence while Ossoff worked as a congressional
aide to Rep. Hank Johnson (D., Ga.), and Ossoff used a large family inheritance
to purchase control of his foreign film company in 2013.
Ossoff on Wednesday also noted that the PPP's
reauthorization has been "blocked since late summer," saying that
securing a second round of small business loans through the program "goes
back to who has power." In October, however, Senate Democrats shot
down a
standalone measure allocating $258 billion in PPP funds, as the proposal did
not include larger economic relief. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.,
N.Y.) called the measure a "political stunt," sparking criticism from
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (D., Ky.).
"The Democratic leaders have spent months
holding out for a long far-left wish list of non-COVID related priorities and
restricting additional aid until they get it," McConnell said.
"There's no reason the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program
should wait another single day."
Democrats also voted
against GOP
coronavirus stimulus packages that included PPP funding in September and
October.
Ossoff is running to unseat Republican Sen.
David Perdue in Georgia's January 5 runoff. The Democrat on Wednesday
criticized Perdue for having "no sense of what ordinary people are going
through" but did not discuss his family's wealth and its impact on his
political career. Perdue has labeled Ossoff a "trust fund socialist who
lives off his family's money."
Tom Brady’s Company
Received More Than $960,000 in PPP Loans
5 Dec 2020246
1:36
According
to data from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Tom Branutrition and
sports performance company, TB 12, collected $960,855 from the federal
government in the form of PPP loans.
According to CNBC:
TB12 Inc., based in
Massachusetts, received the loan on April 15, 2020, as
part of the small business lending program created under the $2 trillion CARES
Act passed by Congress and the Trump administration in March. The loan was
processed by Cambridge Savings Bank.
Brady, a former quarterback for the New England Patriots of the
NFL, started TB12 in 2013. He agreed to a two-year $50 million deal with the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers in March. The company announced in April plans to expand
in Tampa, Florida, New York and Los Angeles.
…
It’s unclear how
TB12 was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and how many jobs it
retained with the loan. CNBC has reached out to the company for comment.
TB12 is not the only fitness
company to have received government assistance during the pandemic. The Sports
Business Journal reports that over 500 fitness
and sports-related businesses received $150,000 or more from the SBA program.
Forbes reports that Tom Brady has made roughly $350 million
during his NFL career.
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