Trump Administration Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler sounded off with a vengeance on fraud during an announcement delivered to the press from the White House during a televised portion of a Cabinet meeting, revealing that the SBA is cracking down on pandemic-era aid program fraud and that the fraudsters will face serious jail time.
During her remarks, Loeffler noted that small businesses in particular have been quite harmed by fraud, as they are the ones that pay so much tax in America, and thus it is largely their tax dollars that are being stolen by fraudsters. She vowed that those fraudsters would face major reprisals and jail time.
SBA Administrator Loeffler began, “Let me tell you the other thing about fraud. Small businesses are particularly hurt by the fraud because they’re some of our biggest taxpayers in the country, and they show up every day. They work hard to provide for their employees, to build their businesses.”
Building on that point, Loeffler then noted how infuriating it is for hard-working small business owners to see their tax dollars stolen by fraud-committing fake businesses, saying, “They’re working, they’re doing it the honest way, and they see fraudsters taking from the American people. It’s taxpayer money, and so you think about at the SBA, we found $200 billion in fraudulent PPP loans that the Biden administration tried to hide and forgive and sweep under the rug.”
Then, continuing by commenting on the massive extent of the fraud, she said, “We’ve turned the first $22 billion of that over to Treasury for collections and to DOJ for prosecution. Our inspector general is already announcing that people are going to jail. There are jail sentences now being served. We’ve announced that 140,000 people have been barred from ever getting SBA loans again, defrauding the government for about $9 billion.”
Wrapping up the fraud point, Loeffler then commented on how VP Vance and his anti-fraud task force have been hugely helpful, saying, “So we are going to continue our work under the great leadership of Vice President Vance and appreciate the partnership, because it’s really accelerated our ability to get the job done.”
Watch her here:
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Changing tracks, Loeffler then explained how important small businesses are to America. She said, “But then just back to small businesses, we have record business formation in this country, that’s another story that the media won’t tell you, over half a million businesses on average a month this year, so it’s not just record people working, strong job creation, business formation at all time records in this country, but we have manufacturing expansion for consecutive months.”
She further explained, commenting on good news for the economy, “That means that’s a leading indicator, meaning that we have expansion coming. Another story the media won’t tell you. 98% of all manufacturers are small businesses. They 75% of our defense industrial base is small business.”
Concluding, the SBA Administrator praised Trump’s policies, saying, “They’re our main exporters, and so America First, free trade, fair trade, deregulation, tax cuts, and energy dominance is helping workers on Main Street, and that’s why they tell you to tell, tell me to tell you, Mr. President.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video