The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) pandemic assistance loan programs didn’t go off sans hitch.
“Over the course of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, SBA disbursed approximately $1.2 trillion of COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds,” explains a report from the SBA’s Office of Inspector General. “The economic assistance was intended to help eligible small business owners and entrepreneurs adversely affected by the crisis.”
You might think that $1.2 trillion would do the job, if anything could.
But of course there was “a hitch” — it’s the thing in government we are never “without.”
The hitch was fraud.
“So far,” writes Eric Boehm at Reason, “investigations into COVID-related fraud have netted 1,011 indictments, 803 arrests, and 529 convictions. The joint efforts of the SBA, U.S. Secret Service, and other federal agencies have resulted in nearly $30 billion in COVID funds being seized or returned to SBA. . . .”
But that’s not even a quarter of it. The Inspector General’s report indicates that the SBA made 4.5 million loans to fraudulent recipients, and the full estimate of their loot is $200 billion — more than 15 percent of the total.
No mystery, though. “It is noteworthy that SBA executed over 14 years’ worth of lending within 14 days, and this was just the beginning.”
Politicians’ make-believe would have us thinking they can just command things to happen and they do. “Everything is possible.” Because, well, “government.” Or “willpower.” Or what-have-you.
Well, losing hundreds of billions is always on the table.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Taken for Billions and Billions”
Some minority of the recipients will be charged and convicted, but most of the money that they received is spend, and they will never make full restitution.
A majority of the fraudster recipients will not even be charged.
The bureaucrats who disbursed the funds will in no way be made to take responsibility, except in those odd cases in which they are found to have channelled money to those fraudsters who were friends or family.
No politician will lose an election for having supported the programme.
No journalist who propagandized on behalf of the programme will face a loss of income for having done so.
So, not a perfect crime, but statistically close.
As with all federal spending, we will be fed the line that $200 billion is just a tiny fraction of a fraction of our GDP. It’s why we can never let a program expire or a federal department or agency be done away with.