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Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar announced that President Biden’s administration has implemented her bipartisan proposal as part of the official policy of the Small Business Administration (SBA).
The bill is the COVID-19 Economic Injury and Disaster Loan (EIDL) Relief Act, which extends the time period for small businesses to repay disaster and economic injury loans in the wake of the severe financial consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The law allows for the extension of payments for an additional year.
The legislative initiative was introduced by Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar and Congresswoman Sharice David last March 3.
“Many of our local job creators applied for EIDL loans at the beginning of the outbreak and yet the pandemic has continued to take a devastating toll on our small businesses,” said Salazar.
“We cannot force our struggling small business owners to repay these loans at a time when many are barely able to keep their doors open. I am so proud that my bipartisan legislation has officially become SBA policy,” she stated.
The legislation came about because in the midst of the pandemic, thousands of small business owners took out loans that were to be repaid within a year; 12 months later, they still cannot find a way to pay off the debts because of the hard economic blow they are facing.
“Tthe first payments of many loan recipients are due in March and April of 2021, but many local job creators have not been able to grow or recover while the pandemic is still raging. This extension is critical so that small business owners who took out a loan during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic do not have to start making payments until at least 2022,” Congresswoman Salazar’s statement said.
María Elvira Salazar on her legislative proposal: “It is very different from spending $1.9 billion in special interests”.
The legislator clarified that her legislative proposal seeks to rescue small businesses and is very different from Biden’s rescue plan which seeks to “spend $ 1.9 trillion in special interests and rescue blue states.”
The pandemic led the U.S. to the highest number of businesses declared bankruptcy since 2009. According to Bloomberg data, there were 244 bankruptcy filings, the most in one year since 2009, when 293 U.S. companies sought protection from creditors.
Biden signed last Thursday the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus plan approved by Congress. The program has been described by the Republican Party as excessive spending, as it is an amount equivalent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Italy.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo