Continuing Appropriations Act, 20201 and Other Extensions Act--
Floor Speech
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Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cramer and my colleague Senator Rounds from North Dakota.
North Carolina's businesses are struggling. I heard Senator Cardin and am sympathetic to most of what he said. Yet, as I have traveled across the State--and I have had 65 telephone townhalls since COVID started and have talked with citizens in North Carolina for an hour, spending 55 minutes hearing from them and answering their questions--I know we have a very difficult problem in North Carolina and across the country. I just talked with a hotel and lodging association and a restaurant association a few weeks ago. They said we have 18,000 restaurants in North Carolina, and 9,000 of them are at risk of closing permanently.
When we passed the CARES Act, we knew we had to do something big, bold, and fast, and I think everyone at the Small Business Administration and in the banking industry mobilized to do something that was unprecedented. They got that money out and into the hands of businesses.
The program is called the Paycheck Protection Program for a reason. We were doing everything we could to make sure that those businesses that were willing could make payroll--could keep people on their benefits, could keep people on their healthcare--and could weather the storm while closures were going on all across this country. They were closing down businesses or, certainly, dramatically reducing their business.
Thank goodness for the brave businesses that stepped up and applied for Paycheck Protection Program loans, and thank goodness for the banks that were willing to underwrite them while we were still, really, working the rules out--literally building the cars as they were rolling down the road. They should be commended for what they have done.
This measure is a simple measure. We know that more than 85 percent of all of the loans that were underwritten under the Paycheck Protection Program were under $150,000, and we know that they were small businesses. Yet we have a lot of paperwork that these businesses are going to have to do, and small businesses interacting with the Federal Government on four or five occasions before the loan is forgiven is a daunting task when you are still trying to figure out how you can make payroll and how you can keep your business going.
Then you have the banking industry that we rely on for moving all of this capital out there and making sure that payrolls can be met and want to be prepared for the next tranche of CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program loans. Yet we are going to tie them up over paperwork with these small business loans that we can forgive? It is not like we are turning a blind eye to compliance. We will look at that loan portfolio with the same sort of sampling that the IRS does to make sure there is not any fraud or abuse and to make sure people are held accountable.
If Senator Cardin really wants to get to the work of the next Paycheck Protection Program, let's lay the groundwork and clear the plumbing so we may call on the Small Business Administration, which is in the process of hiring 1,200 people just to deal with loan forgiveness. The banks that want to provide more loans need to clear their backlogs so they will have the capacity to do it as fast as possible.
Senator Cardin is right in that we have a lot more to do. This is a step in a long journey. Yet, in doing this forgiveness program--the measure that Senator Cardin objected to--we would have the opportunity to take a straw off the camel's back. We have to do something. We continue following up on the CARES Act, but I am very disappointed that we have gotten where we are in this Chamber when everybody knows this is good legislation.
We should do it, but they are turning their backs on businesses. Unfortunately, I think it is going to result in more people being on unemployment and more businesses closing. I will work as hard as I can with Senator Cramer and Senator Rounds and other Members to get this done.
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