Unanimous Consent Request

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. I want to say this unequivocally. Despite everything you read out there, in my mind, I don't think there is any question that by far this has been the most successful part of the CARES Act.

To put it in perspective, this was something we worked on in a bipartisan way. In less than a week, it was crafted, and then the agencies had less than 6 days to put together the rules.

Until Friday, April 4, no bank in America had ever made a PPP loan; no one had ever applied for one; and the SBA had never approved one. It was a massive program. We looked at the results. They are stunning--the results that we have seen.

Does the program have problems? Sure. I think any time that you create something that spends $500 billion, $600 billion that reaches over 50 percent of the U.S. economy and put it together so quickly, there are going to be unintended consequences. I will come back to that point in a moment. I think the biggest problem this program has had from the very beginning, which created some of these tensions that we read about in the press, is that it was underfunded from the very beginning. I mean, the demand was greater than the supply, even potentially right now after the second round.

We have heard the reports about publicly traded companies. We all know how we feel about that, and I am glad that is being addressed now. I also want to put it in perspective. They have taken 0.35 percent of the funds that were approved--not 35 percent, not 3.5 percent, 0.35 percent of the money that has been lent.

It is not like they took half the money, which is what the perception is that has been created in the coverage. Meanwhile, that means the rest of it went to somebody who is not publicly traded. That is an extraordinary achievement, nonetheless, and I am glad that is being looked at.

On transparency, they are all valid points. Myself--Friday, Saturday--I was really upset that we weren't getting those numbers. The reason why I want the numbers is, A, we want to make sure this program that we put our names on and worked hard on--all of us have--is reaching its intended audience and, B, the points that were made here as well, to the extent that changes have to be in any future funding, we want to make sure that future funding is targeted in the right way. The problem is--I was as upset as anybody.

I hope that the agencies are watching these proceedings now and understanding why it is so important that our Members have accurate details and regular information about how this program is rolling out.

What we do know, when they finally released numbers on Saturday, is that in round 2, the average loan went from $206,000 in round 1 to $76,000 or so in round 2. That is a stunning drop. It tells you it is reaching smaller business.

We know that 72 percent of loans made in round 2 were under $50,000, and 85 percent were under $100,000. We do know that 4,400 of the 5,200 lenders in the program--or 5,400 lenders in the program have less than $1 billion in assets. We know it is reaching the regional banks, the smaller banks, the credit unions.

The reason why doing what is being proposed now will be problematic is twofold. The first is, some of the demographic data that is being asked is not on the application. It is not even clear that they would be able to produce that for us unless they stopped the process, created a new application, and then began the process as well.

We will know the answer to that question in the forgiveness phase. I do believe in the forgiveness phase it is very valid to ask that information on demographics be included in the forgiveness application that people are going to have to file.

I think the best path forward is, in my view, not to pass something like this today, although something like this may be necessary if we can't get these numbers. But let's find out, first and foremost, what data points do they have. What data points does the SBA have at their disposal and see if we can get them to do what they should be doing already, which is producing it on a regular--maybe not on a daily basis. What I don't want to see is an already overburdened agency that is small to begin with and struggling to get all these programs running having to pull people off getting people money to fill out this information.

We have to understand that in the end, it is not the Administrator or the Treasury Secretary who will have to write these things up and collect it. It is going to be people who, in many cases, are working from home, living in this region under all the restrictions that are there.

I think this agency is already struggling to manage this massive program, and to add an additional requirement without thinking it through would have an unintended consequence of potentially slowing the program down.

It is my view that we are going to find out all of this information, and we are going to know it in a timely fashion so we can do something about it. I do not believe that passing this today is the right approach, given the fact that we first need to know what data they have at their disposal before we can ask them to produce it. Otherwise, I fear they are going to stop or they are going to slow down, and real businesses, small businesses, and not-for-profits will be delayed. I will object to this request.

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