Ernst Co-Leads Small Business Hearing, Presses Small Business Administration on Efforts to Curb Fraud in Lending Program

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) today co-led the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s hearing on the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) lending of COVID-19 relief loan programs, where she highlighted the ways these programs were exploited by bad actors, and the economic impact that record federal spending levels has had on inflation and Iowa small businesses. Ernst pressed the SBA on the amount of fraudulent loans awarded, efforts to recover these funds, and how she can work with the agency to ensure this does not happen again in the future.

Click HERE or the image above for Senator Ernst’s full remarks.

“We now know fraudsters bilked millions and millions from SBA in fraudulent loans from this program,” said Senator Ernst during the hearing. “Yet to date, the SBA has not launched an investigation into this issue, or made any effort to recoup the ineligible funds.”

Ernst went on to say: “It is critically important to protect the integrity of the capital access programs that are intended to provide support to small businesses from fraud and ineligible distributions… I look forward to working together in the future to ensure that taxpayer money is protected from fraud and that bad actors are held accountable.”

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