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.
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
Collin Anderson - DECEMBER
2, 2020 3:40 PM
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."
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