WASHINGTON—Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the Senate he would support targeted additional aid to businesses of all sizes that have been hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. Mnuchin’s comments came during a hearing by the Senate Small Business Committee on Wednesday.
“I definitely think we are going to need another bipartisan legislation to put more money into the economy,” he said. “Whatever we do going forward needs to be much more targeted, particularly to the industries and small businesses that are having the most difficulty reopening.”
Mnuchin did not offer any comment on what he thought the additional stimulus should look like, saying only it could include tax credits or direct funding.
Focus on PPP
Much of the discussion during the hearing focused on the Paycheck Protection Program, which has distributed more than $500 billion in forgivable loans to date.
“I think the majority of this money is going to be forgiven in the next few months and that is our intent,” the Treasury secretary said.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she has heard from businesses that have been required to remain all or partially closed and which are now running out of PPP funds, and suggested Congress might consider allowing them to apply for additional funds from the PPP.
Mnuchin said approximately $12-billion in PPP loans have been returned since the program was launched. Mnuchin added there are no plans to release individual loan data for PPP recipients, saying “in many cases (it’s) for sole proprietors and small businesses, and is confidential information.”
SBA Chief Pressed on EIDL
Appearing with Mnuchin at the hearing was Jovita Carranza, head of the Small Business Administration, who fielded a number of questions related to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which also offers assistance to small businesses and which has been dealing with a large backlog of loan applications. Carranza told the committee progress is being made and that by “next week all of the EIDL loans will be in the process in the loan portal. Those loans will be processed and we will be over with the EIDL. I’m really encouraged by that.”
Carranza said the decision to limit the EIDL disaster loans to $150,000 rather than the usual $2 million was not an “arbitrary number,” and was a response to the fact the SBA had more than five-million applications in its queue.