The Small Business Administration (SBA) issued the following statement today from administrator Karen Mills regarding efforts to ensure continued funding for two key provisions in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) of 2009:
“SBA’s most popular ARRA provisions--the increased guarantee and reduced fees in the two largest lending programs--have helped engineer a significant turnaround in SBA lending. Continuing those ARRA provisions is SBA’s top priority. Through the original $375 million and the additional $125 million appropriations for these two provisions, SBA has supported more than $20 billion in lending to small businesses across the country and seen its average weekly loan volume increase by nearly 90 percent since February 2009. Through ARRA we brought nearly 1,100 lending institutions back to the SBA’s programs that had not made an SBA loan since at least 2007. All told, these steps have benefited tens of thousands of small businesses and supported hundreds of thousands of jobs during these tough economic times. However, we know there is still more work to be done. As the president has requested, we will continue to work with Congress to extend these programs through September 2010.