Congressman Patrick McHenry Says Every Small Business Who Needs an Emergency Loan Should Get One

<p>Congress authorized $350 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program in its coronavirus rescue package that was passed two weeks ago. Any company with 500 employees or fewer can get a loan of up to $10 million and that loan will be forgiven as long as 75% of the money goes toward keeping employees on payroll. The loans are financed by the U.S. government, but are conducted through private sector banks.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>But over the first several days since enrollment in the PPP opened, there have been a lot of problems with people saying they cannot enroll. There were technical issues because of the crush of people trying to apply. But the banks also put up obstacles. One of the most common problems people reported was banks saying they couldn’t apply unless they already had a business account or a credit card with them, or both.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>So I spoke with Rep. Patrick McHenry, the top Republican on the House Financial Services committee, who has been working with the Treasury department to try to fine tune the rollout of the program. McHenry is from North Carolina, a bank-heavy state. He was&nbsp;</p><p>Republican leadership for several years in the House and moved over to a top committee spot when they became the House minority in 2018.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>There were two things McHenry said that are noteworthy. First, he said he thinks that there shouldn’t be a cap on how much the U.S. government can lend out to small businesses, an idea floated on Wednesday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat. It was noteworthy that McHenry agreed with Warren on this. The point would be to ease the anxiety of people who have had trouble getting access so far and worry they will be shut out all together. Already this week Congress is moving to add another $250 billion to the program, bringing it to a $600 billion total, but McHenry thinks that is not enough.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>And second, I asked McHenry to address the concerns of a number of people who told me they were not sure how t