Trump admin releases list of companies that received most money from small business bailout loans

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: CNBC

The Treasury Department and Small Business Administration on Monday disclosed the names of many of the small businesses to which it lent money under a program intended to blunt the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic.

The disclosure comes amid demands from Democrats for more transparency around the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, funds established as part of the $2 trillion CARES Act, which President Donald Trump signed this spring.

[The full list is available on the Small Business Administration website, which you can access here bit.ly/2BLaHmV We are combing through the data now.]

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sparked an outcry from Democrats when he originally implied the Trump administration would not disclose the names of participants. The Treasury and SBA later reversed course, saying they would disclose names and other details about businesses that took PPP loans of $150,000 and above.

Those loans represent nearly three-fourths of total loan dollars approved, but a far smaller proportion of the number of actual loans. About 87% of the loans were for less than $150,000, according to the SBA.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/06/coronavirus-stimulus-list-of-ppp-small-business-loan-recipients-released.html

[matt819]

1. Couple of points

At least in the state I was looking at, the list was of businesses receiving up to $150,000

Businesses are not identified by name, only by NAICS code. You might be able to identify a particular company in a particular zip code by its NAICS code and possibly by the amount loaned/given. In a small town you could make an educated guess. In a large zip code, you might never come close.

Plus, any business receiving under $150,000 is, by definition, a small business. No one is really questioning money given to small businesses. It's the amounts over $150,00 to large businesses, including divisions of Fortune 500 companies, that are legitimately being questioned.

It's possible, that you could move to identifying a specific company based on the bank through which the payments were made. And it's interesting, I suppose, to see which banks were more (or less) active than others.

[PSPS]

2. "About 87% of the loans were for less than $150,000, according to the SBA."

While that figure is almost certainly a lie, we'll have to assume the remaining 13% was vigorish for trump's mob.