A Discussion With SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman — Committee on Small Business (November 16, 2021)
Summary
This is a hearing before the Committee on Small Business of the United States House of Representatives, titled A Discussion With SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, on November 16, 2021. The contents list opening statements by Nydia Velázquez and Blaine Luetkemeyer and a witness, Isabella Casillas Guzman, Administrator of the United States Small Business Administration. Velázquez says traditional SBA loan programs provided a record amount of funding to small firms in fiscal year 2021, $44.8 billion in financing through more than 61,000 loans. A statement addressed to Guzman asks unanimous consent to enter into the record more than 60 questions the Republicans submitted after the May appearance.
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- Chrg 117Hhrg46064
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“A Discussion With SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman — Committee on Small Business (November 16, 2021).”
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A DISCUSSION WITH SBA ADMINISTRATOR
ISABELLA CASILLLAS GUZMAN
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
HEARING HELD
NOVEMBER 16, 2021
Small Business Committee Document Number 117–041
Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46–064 WASHINGTON : 2022
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman
JARED GOLDEN, Maine
JASON CROW, Colorado
SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
MARIE NEWMAN, Illinois
CAROLYN BOURDEAUX, Georgia
TROY CARTER, Louisiana
JUDY CHU, California
DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
ANTONIO DELGADO, New York
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
ANDY KIM, New Jersey
ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri, Ranking Member
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
JIM HAGEDORN, Minnesota
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York
ANDREW GARBARINO, New York
YOUNG KIM, California
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
BYRON DONALDS, Florida
MARIA SALAZAR, Florida
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
MELISSA JUNG, Majority Staff Director
ELLEN HARRINGTON, Majority Deputy Staff Director
DAVID PLANNING, Staff Director
(II)
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CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Nydia Velázquez ............................................................................................. 1
Hon. Blaine Luetkemeyer ....................................................................................... 3
WITNESS
The Honorable Isabella Casillas Guzman, Administrator, United States Small
Business Administration, Washington, DC ....................................................... 5
APPENDIX
Prepared Statement:
The Honorable Isabella Casillas Guzman, Administrator, United States
Small Business Administration, Washington, DC ..................................... 49
Questions and Answers for the Record:
Questions from Hon. Velázquez and Answers from Hon. Guzman .............. 59
Question from Hon. Mfume and Answer from Hon. Guzman ...................... 65
Questions from Hon. Carter and Answers from Hon. Guzman .................... 66
Questions from Hon. Luetkemeyer and Answers from Hon. Guzman ......... 68
Questions from Hon. Meuser and Answers from Hon. Guzman .................. 95
Questions from Hon. Tenney and Answers from Hon. Guzman ................... 97
Questions from Hon. Van Duyne from Hon. Guzman ................................... 99
Additional Material for the Record:
AFSA - American Financial Services Association .......................................... 122
CUNA - Credit Union National Association ................................................... 124
ICBA - Independent Community Bankers of America .................................. 126
Letter from Hon. Angie Craig to Hon. Nancy Pelosi and Hon. Steny
Hoyer .............................................................................................................. 129
Letter from Hon. Young Kim to Hon. Isabella Guzman ............................... 131
Letter from Alfredo Ortiz, President and CEO of the Job Creators Net-
work to the Committee on Small Business ................................................. 133
MHI - Manufactured Housing Institute ......................................................... 135
NAFCU - National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions ........... 137
U.S. Travel Association .................................................................................... 139
Questions submitted for the record from the hearing dated May 26,
2021 ................................................................................................................ 140
Questions submmitted for the record from the hearing dated October
6, 2021 ............................................................................................................ 154
(III)
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A DISCUSSION WITH SBA ADMINISTRATOR
ISABELLA CASILLAS GUZMAN
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2021
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room
2360, Rayburn House Office Building and via Zoom, Hon. Nydia
Velázquez [chairwoman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Velázquez, Golden, Davids, Mfume,
Phillips, Newman, Bourdeaux, Chu, Evans, Delgado, Houlahan,
Mr. Kim, Craig, Luetkemeyer, Hagedorn, Stauber, Williams,
Meuser, Tenney, Garbarino, Ms. Young Kim, Van Duyne, Donalds,
Salazar, and Fitzgerald.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Good morning. I call this hearing to
order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at
any time.
I would like to begin by noting some important requirements.
Standing House and Committee rules and practice will continue to
apply during hybrid proceedings. All Members are reminded that
they are expected to adhere to these standing rules including deco-
rum.
House regulations require Members to be visible through a video
connection throughout the proceeding, so please keep your cameras
on. Also, please remember to remain muted until you are recog-
nized to minimize background noise.
In the event a Member encounters technical issues that prevent
them from being recognized for their questioning, I will move to the
next available Member of the same party and I will recognize that
Member at the next appropriate time slot provided they have re-
turned to the proceeding.
For those Members and staff physically present in the Com-
mittee room today, in accordance with the attending physician’s
most recent guidance, all Members and staff who attend in person
will be required to wear masks in the hearing room. With that
said, Members will be allowed to briefly remove their masks if they
have been recognized to speak.
Now, let’s turn to why we are here today—a discussion with the
Small Business Administration Administrator. First, I would like
to welcome Administrator Guzman. Thank you for being here
today. We appreciate you coming in for another appearance before
this Committee during your short time as administrator.
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Back in March when you were confirmed small firms were still
reeling from 2020, a year when around 800,000 small businesses
permanently closed their doors—roughly 30 percent more than in
a typical year. Since then, you and the dedicated staff at the SBA
have worked tirelessly to administer the relief programs that Con-
gress created and help entrepreneurs get back on their feet.
The work of the agency should not go unheralded today. Small
firms across the country are in a better place thanks to the Amer-
ican Rescue Plan and the economic relief programs Congress
passed. The economy has added an average of 620,000 jobs per
month since President Biden took office, and small firms are lead-
ing the way. These figures would not have been possible without
the historic relief measures that this Committee put in place and
the work of the SBA.
In addition to massive demand for the relief programs, the agen-
cy has had to operate its traditional lending offerings and core pro-
grams. I was pleased to see your recent announcement that tradi-
tional SBA loan programs provided a record amount of funding to
small firms in fiscal year 2021—$44.8 billion in financing through
more than 61,000 loans, to be exact. These numbers are evidence
of the extraordinary potential that the agency has to help entre-
preneurs get back on track.
I look forward to hearing more about your vision for the agency
and how we can all work together to highlight efforts that have
been successful and thoughtfully examine the programs that need
improving. This will require a substantive, focused, and measured
conversation on SBA’s programs and the issues facing us today.
America’s small employers deserve nothing less. They do not
have time for accusations, gotcha questions, and partisan bick-
ering. They are 100 percent focused on their survival and future.
I, too, want to look to the future. With COVID cases falling and
vaccination rates rising, we are steadily putting COVID behind us.
This new post-COVID economy may be unfamiliar for many entre-
preneurs, but it also presents a great deal of opportunity.
I believe these opportunities will only increase with President
Biden’s agenda to build back better and correct decisions made in
the previous administration that has led to many of the crises we
face today—such as inflation, workforce shortages, supply chain
disruptions, inequity in health care and childcare, and worst of all
a slow recovery. So much time was wasted last Congress but now
we are course correcting to address many of these issues by invest-
ing in America.
Earlier this month, House Democrats and a handful of our Re-
publican colleagues finally delivered on the promises of infrastruc-
ture week by passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
This legislation will rebuild roads and bridges, expand broadband
access, and generally prepare the American economy to grow from
the bottom up in the 21st century.
The bill will also allow small firms to play a role in revitalizing
American infrastructure by creating many good-paying jobs that
cannot be sent overseas. In fact, Republican Senator Rob Portman
described these investments as adding ‘‘to the supply side of the
economy and will be counter-inflationary at a time of rising infla-
tion.’’
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Democrats are also busy providing small businesses with a sub-
stantial $5 billion investment through the Build Back Better Act.
The bill will tackle core small business issues by improving access
to capital, boosting underrepresented firms, and creating opportu-
nities for small contractors. The legislation will pave the way for
recovery in the short term and prosperity in the future.
Taken together, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and
the Build Back Better Act amount to a generational commitment
to the success of American small businesses. You and the staff at
SBA are a key component to these initiatives. I look forward to
hearing your testimony and discussing these issues today.
I now yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Luetkemeyer, for his
opening statement.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for
joining us in person today to discuss the current small business
landscape.
As you very well know, small businesses across the country have
been facing a multitude of challenges, many of which have been
caused by the overreaching grasp of the federal government. The
Small Business Administration is tasked with assisting these
struggling firms, especially in the wake of the pandemic. However,
month after month, we have witnessed quite the opposite coming
from this administration’s SBA and other agencies.
Treasury Secretary Yellen, who is legally required to testify be-
fore our Committee, continues to ignore us. It appears that she has
time to do many events even on the campaign side and meet with
a variety of people, but she still refuses to fulfill her legal duty to
testify before this Committee. Secretary Yellen’s inability to appear
before us is an insult to small business owners across this nation.
She is blatantly turning her back on a sector of the economy that
produces nearly two out of every three jobs and contributes just
under half this nation’s gross domestic product. Small businesses,
entrepreneurs, and startups are an essential factor to America’s
economy and she still refuses to testify. This is unacceptable.
We are glad, however, that you are here representing the pri-
mary and sole federal agency that was created to defend and pro-
tect small businesses. It is no secret that the nation’s smallest
firms are still working tirelessly to recover from the everchanging
and overreaching state and local shutdowns ordered during the
pandemic.
If it was not bad enough, now they are facing some of the strong-
est economic headwinds in recent memory with the Biden and the
Democrats’ massive spending agenda. As Members of the Com-
mittee, we hear from small business owners every day. When we
are back in our home district, we visit with their storefronts and
listen to their stories. Unfortunately, the reports coming from main
street USA are far from positive. Prices are soaring at the sharpest
rate in over 30 years. Supply chain disruptions are making it near-
ly impossible to obtain good and products. Americans are refusing
to get back to work because the government is paying them to stay
home creating a labor shortage crisis.
Main street is still facing a looming vaccine mandate require-
ment for their already depleted worker pool, and now small busi-
ness owners are being threatened with increased taxes due to the
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trillions of dollars this administration plans to spend at the ex-
pense of middle class Americans. These are monumental issues
that deserve a full and comprehensive discussion.
You can look at some of the recent small business surveys and
they show the exact same thing. The top issue small businesses are
struggling with today are the severe economic conditions that they
face. Take for example the Job Creators Network Monthly Monitor
Poll. Inflation is the top challenge reported by small business own-
ers. Or the NFIB Jobs Report that shows 49 percent of small busi-
ness owners cannot fill the open job positions they then have.
These are fundamental and core issues to our country’s distressed
small business landscape.
I ask that you put yourselves in the shoes of a small business
owner just for a moment. Your inventory is low because your prod-
ucts are stuck on a ship that is sitting off the cost of Los Angeles.
You are forced to raise prices during the critical holiday season,
and you cannot find any workers. With all these issues combined,
I do not see how small business can be successful.
And what have we heard from the administration as a response?
You plan to force through trillions of dollars in spending all on the
back of small business owners. And as a reminder, a recent study
from the left-leaning Tax Policy Center found that this administra-
tion’s far-left spending spree would raise taxes on the middle class
of our American friends and colleagues by 30 percent. Additionally,
instead of allowing our small businesses to operate independently,
this administration is imposing more mandates and regulations.
So the question remains, who is actually standing up for the na-
tion’s job creators within the Biden administration?
Ms. Guzman, that is your duty. The Small Business Administra-
tion has a duty to defend these small business owners. I plead with
you to listen to them and hear what they have to say. These men
and women are not asking for new programs so they can receive
a direct loan from the federal agency. They want common sense,
pro-growth policies that will provide them with the ability to run
a well-rounded, efficient operation, free from the hand of govern-
ment.
Ms. Guzman, if you took the time to hear from small businesses
in urban, suburban, and rural areas of the United State you would
hear a lot and learn a lot.
Today, I look forward to having a conversation on all of these
topics and we expect our questions to be answered.
Before we begin, I must note that simply saying that your agency
will get back to us in writing will not stand.
I would like to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the
record more than 60 questions the Republicans submitted to Ad-
ministrator Guzman after appearing before our Committee in May
and more than 60 questions for the record the Republicans sub-
mitted to Administrator Mark Madrid after his appearance be-
tween our Committee in September.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I will note for the record that we have not received an answer
to any of these questions thus far. And it is not just our questions
during Committee hearings that go unanswered. My colleagues
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have asked numerous questions posed to you on behalf of their
small business constituents and they do not receive any responses.
One of the many examples, questions about Economic Injury Dis-
aster Loans go unanswered.
If it is your desire for this administration to be a direct lender,
why is your current direct lending tool such a disaster? Not only
is EIDL a black hole when it comes to customer service, but it is
also riddled with fraud according to the SBA Inspector General. I
will say it again. The SBA, which pushed through approximately
$1 trillion the last 18 months had better wake up. If you ignore
and refuse to answer the representatives’ questions that we were
sent here on behalf of our constituents and our small businesses to
ask. You have refused to implement countless recommendations
from the Inspector General and your actions do not match what the
small businesses say are the top concerns facing their operations.
Over $32 billion small businesses across the United States deserve
better. Main street USA deserves better.
And Madam Chair, with that, I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Luetkemeyer. The
gentleman yields back.
With that, I will now introduce our distinguished witness, the
Honorable Isabella Casillas Guzman. Administrator Guzman is
currently serving as the 27th administrator of the Small Business
Administration. Her previous experience as director of the Cali-
fornia Office of the Small Business Advocate, coupled with her posi-
tion as senior advisor and deputy chief of staff at SBA make her
uniquely qualified to take the helm. Not only does she have the
knowledge needed to assist small businesses in their recovery, but
as a former small business owner and advisor to entrepreneurs, she
has the understanding to advocate on their behalf. Administrator
Guzman earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Penn-
sylvania Wharton School of Business.
Welcome, Administrator Guzman. You are recognized for 5 min-
utes.
STATEMENT OF ISABELLA CASILLAS GUZMAN,
ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Ms. GUZMAN. Good morning, Chairwoman Velázquez, Ranking
Member Luetkemeyer, and distinguished Members of the Com-
mittee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here to discuss the im-
portant work of the U.S. Small Business Administration and what
we are doing to help America’s 32.5 million small businesses and
innovative startups continue to propel our economy forward.
Though we have made considerable progress fighting COVID and
reopening small business and our economy thanks to the American
Rescue Plan, the Delta variant has lingering impacts and many
small business still need the SBA’s help as a result and we con-
tinue to deliver billions of dollars in relief. At the same time, the
American entrepreneurial spirit is stronger than ever with more
than 9 million new businesses applying for filing since January
2020. At the SBA, we are working hard to ensure small businesses
continue to drive our economic recovery.
Over the course of the pandemic, our agency has scaled from 40
billion per year output to distribute more than $1.1 trillion in
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emergency relief. Alongside our core programs, many of which have
also delivered at record levels, today, the SBA is continuing to de-
liver for millions of small businesses. In the 8 months of my leader-
ship, we have leveraged technology to streamline, automate, and
deliver relief to small businesses with a customer service and an
equity focus. We are working across our programs and services to
better meet the needs of all small businesses, especially those that
were left out of early rounds of relief, often our smallest businesses
and those owned by women and people of color and other under-
served small businesses.
In 2021, we have made important gains. After making key pro-
grammatic changes to the nearly $800 billion Paycheck Protection
Program, 96 percent of PPP loans went to small businesses with
fewer than 20 employees with strong performance and low to mod-
erate income communities and rural communities. In addition, a
recent GAO report found that our reforms helped close those cap-
ital gaps in PPP. Now, we are delivering on the promise of forgive-
ness for PPP loans. We have ensured this process is being carried
out at the highest standards and with utmost integrity.
We launched the SBA PPP Direct Forgiveness Portal to offer a
pathway to relief for the 6.5 million small business owners who
took out loans of $150,000 or less.
We have seen similar positive results with our reforms and im-
provements to the COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program,
the last and most flexible of our SBA COVID lifelines with billions
more available. We have approved more than 3.8 million COVID
EIDL loans for a total of more than $295 billion, plus an additional
$26 billion in COVID EIDL grants both targeted and supplemental.
And we expanded our reach while protecting against fraud, waste,
and abuse. We brought back tax record verification consistent with
our historic approach. We have also implemented additional meas-
ures to help ensure good stewardship of this program’s resources.
We are taking steps to improve outreach across all of our pro-
grams to small businesses in every corner of the nation, including
our underserved communities. We recently announced the Commu-
nity Navigator pilot program grantee organizations, which will de-
ploy trusted community partners in underserved communities to
better connect small business owners to government resources.
As the nation emerges from the COVID pandemic, the SBA will
help try to path forward to a thriving and equitable economy that
lifts all small businesses and innovative startups in communities
across American building from the bottom up and the middle out
to leave no one behind.
Access to capital remains one of the most critical factors for
small business success. Yet, small businesses, particularly those
from underserved communities lack access to the small dollar loans
they need to survive and grow. The president’s Build Back Better
framework will help us increase access to capital for small busi-
nesses by creating a direct lending product that leverages the
strength of our incredible growing lender network. We are also
working to close the opportunity gap by increasing the number of
small businesses that do business with the federal government.
The Build Back Better framework will help us build equity in gov-
ernment procurement with nationwide investments in business in-
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cubators and innovation accelerators and a specific program for
veteran entrepreneurs. Now is the right time to ensure that more
small businesses will be able to take part in the $1.2 trillion in his-
toric investments in the rebuilding of our nation’s infrastructure
made possible through the bipartisan infrastructure deal.
We know that many challenges remain. In the months ahead we
will continue to harness the power of the entrepreneurial spirit to
drive our economy and our nation forward.
Thank you so much, Chairwoman Velázquez, Ranking Member
Luetkemeyer, and distinguished Members of the Committee, for
the opportunity to appear before you, and I look forward to your
questions.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Administrator Guzman.
Now we will turn to questions. I will recognize the gentleman
from Maine, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Underserved, Agri-
cultural, and Rural Business Development, Mr. Golden, for 5 min-
utes.
Mr. Golden, you are muted. Mr. Golden, we cannot hear.
I will then recognize the gentlelady from Kansas, Ms. Davids,
Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax, and
Capital Access.
Ms. DAVIDS. Thank you, Chairwoman. And thank you for hold-
ing this hearing today.
Administrator, it is good to see you. I appreciate you recently
coming to visit the Kansas Third. You know, half of my job is
spreading the good word of Kansas and so it was a pleasure to
have you come visit alongside the First Lady where you heard first-
hand stories of entrepreneurs and small business owners who are
reeling from the effects of the pandemic.
I think that there is a couple of things. One, I would be very cu-
rious, and we will follow up about the assertion that you have not
responded to nearly 60 questions submitted by Members of the
House. And we will follow up just to discuss that with you. Our ex-
perience in my office has been a lot of response whether we agree
on the issues that we are dealing with or not.
So I want to kind of turn to the programs that existed previously
and the ones that we have seen emerge because of the pandemic,
namely the Paycheck Protection Program. The SBA 7(a) and 504
loan programs have existed for a while and prior to the Paycheck
Protection Program there were about 1,900 lenders engaged in
those programs. With the Paycheck Protection Program coming on-
line, we saw that there were 5,000 new lenders that participated
in that.
I am curious what ways you all are looking at to kind of leverage
the increase in participation by lenders, by the private sector with
this federal program, and just what we need to be thinking about
as we move forward and how we can assist in leveraging that.
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for the
question.
We do think it is a historic opportunity to take advantage of
these expanded networks, not only in our lending circles but just
broadly the attention on small businesses and that is what we have
been focused on.
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Across our lending network, we have been able to really develop
our relationships with community financial institutions, as well as
community banks and others who require that technical assistance
with the SBA as well. And so my Capital Access team stands ready
to support them in using all of your products, transitioning from
PPP to the 7(a) and 504 so that we can better distribute our loans
into communities across the country. And we look forward if there
are any lenders in particular that your office is focused on that we
could pay attention to. It is partially why we launched the Director
Forgiveness portal to simplify for those smaller banks that maybe
did not have the technology to streamline processing of PPP so that
they could take advantage of it and offer it to their constituents,
their customers.
Ms. DAVIDS. So that is the lender side. I am also curious about
ways that additional engagement or support has been given to the
new entrants into all of these programs across the board during
what has been a pretty chaotic time, not just for the SBA but for
lenders and the entrepreneurs and small business owners. I am cu-
rious what you all are doing to facilitate additional growth and le-
verage the new engagement that we are seeing.
Ms. GUZMAN. It is definitely our goal to try to serve more of
those 32.5 million small businesses. So across our network of re-
source partners, some of them have seen up to a 10x increase in
the amount of businesses coming to them. We want to continue to
direct individual businesses to them. We have recently launched
the Community Navigator pilot program. Those grantees are trust-
ed organizations that can authentically reach communities focusing
on women, people of color, veterans, rural communities, and broad-
ly try to further enhance our services, especially for these highly
entrepreneurial communities that are starting up at the highest
rates. And so we plan to expand those connections to small busi-
nesses, build more bridges so that they can work with the SBA. We
want to be part of their team and let them know that resources are
available to them.
Ms. DAVIDS. Thank you, Administrator.
And Madam Chair, I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back.
Now we recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Luetkemeyer, for 5
minutes.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just a quick housekeeping situation here. We have got two of my
Members today actually have birthdays, Ms. Van Duyne and Mr.
Fitzgerald. So congratulations. You made it to another momentous
day here.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Happy birthday. Yeah.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. With regards to Ms. Guzman, thank you
for coming today.
You and I had a conversation this last week and I am going to
be true to my word here. We are very concerned about the kind of
communications or lack thereof that we are getting out of your of-
fice. You seem to ignore our letters and requests. In fact, I got a
letter yesterday to my requests already several months ago. Still
missing one from April 16th. There is a letter that I asked. Still
no response to that. I know some of our Members got letters yester-
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day to their letters which were a long time ago were asked. So ap-
parently, we need to have you scheduled every week for 5 minutes
before this Committee so we can get letters responded to from the
previous week. Is that what is going to have to happen from now
on?
Ms. GUZMAN. I can assure you that my team is working dili-
gently. We have had about 90 requests and have responded to 80
of them and we continue to try to increase that pace as we do want
you to have the information you need.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. Well, we need to increase it a little
more because getting a letter 6 months late does not answer my
question. That is not acceptable. You have got to do better than
that.
Also, from the standpoint that your testimony, we did not get it
until 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. And by the rules of this Com-
mittee, we are supposed to get it 72 hours. That is not acceptable
either.
Also, with regards to Ms. Yellen and my testimony, and I men-
tioned it to you the other day, what have you done to contact her
to have her live up to her responsibilities? The PPP program is a
Treasury program. She is in charge of that program. The banks are
administered from the standpoint of executing the program and
SBA is administering the program. Have you talked to her at all
about showing up at this Committee?
Ms. GUZMAN. We talk about small business issues. We have not
talked about this——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Why have you not addressed that issue
that is by law she is required to show up?
Ms. GUZMAN. Apologies. I know that the invitation went out to
her and I am sure that her team will respond to you. I cannot re-
spond on her behalf.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Six and a half months now she is past due
at showing up at this Committee. That is not going to get it, Ms.
Guzman, saying that her team is going to take care of it. She has
totally checked out. She is not going to come to this Committee.
You, as the SBA Chairman, Administrator, need to contact her and
say, Ms. Yellen, you need to show up here.
Ms. GUZMAN. The SBA is working diligently to actually admin-
ister the PPP and the direct lending and so we can continue to re-
port to you. I know that my team shares over 4 weekly reports
with the Committee, including on PPP forgiveness, and so we will
continue to provide the information you need.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Two more situations here.
Number one, the IG report. And we had a meeting with the IG.
And he indicated to us that even now a lot of the, you know, they
gave you a lot of suggestions on how to clean up the mess, espe-
cially in the EIDL program. This direct lending is a disaster quite
frankly and when you have 30 percent, almost 30 percent of the
program is fraudulent, that cannot happen. Cannot stand. And we
do not need to put another direct lending program within your ju-
risdiction if that is what is going to happen to it as well.
So one of the comments that he made to me in our little group
when we were discussing it is that even though he puts these pro-
grams in place and suggestions in place and you say they are going
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to execute them, the staff does not execute on those recommenda-
tions. They refuse to do it. That is his words, not mine. How are
you going to address that situation to get your staff to actually do
their job to execute——
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Sure.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. So I——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. As long as it does not take away from my
time.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. No, no, no. I will let you go on for
a little more. We requested a bipartisan briefing with the IG and
you did not accept that.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. We had our meeting with the IG, Madam
Chairman.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Yes, you did. The version that you
are presenting here is totally different from the version that he
presented to us. Let’s bring the IG here and let’s discuss——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. That would be great.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ.—the fraud that occurred under the
Trump administration. This is Administrator Guzman.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. That is not my point. The point is that we
have SBA staff that do not adhere to the recommendations that the
administrator accepts from the IG. And as a result, those things
are not getting done. The safeguards that we need to put in place
are not being put in place and executed. This cannot happen. There
is a reason for those recommendations.
Ms. GUZMAN. I meet biweekly with Inspector General Ware to
ensure that we can be coordinated and that my team knows that
we are sincere about implementing. We have satisfied multiple IG
recommendations at this point and we continue to implement. And
per the IG, the conversations I have had with him, we are making
great progress towards that aim. And I will point out that COVID
EIDL, specifically since you brought that up, previously in CARES
the administration made decisions not to select 4506T transcripts.
Those are the tax documents that we need to prevent fraud. Those
have all been corrected per the IG’s recommendation and thanks to
the Economic Aid Act. And so I appreciate this Committee’s advo-
cacy to make sure we could do that.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Along that line, the IG as of 11-15, this
is their report. They have 35 recommendations and 20 of them still
remain open. And it has been like this for months. So there has
to be some execution on your part to get this done and have the
staff execute as well.
I have one more quick question before we leave you here.
With regards to the portal. It is not a bad idea and it works if
they want to take advantage of it. The problem is, one of your staff
Members threatened—I have an email—threatened the bankers
and said if you do not use this portal, we are going to have—what
was his exact word here? We are going to threaten an enhanced
audit of you if you do not use this. What do you think about that?
Ms. GUZMAN. That was misconstrued. That was not a threat to-
wards the bank.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I read the email, Ms. Guzman. It was
pretty explicit.
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Ms. GUZMAN. So what we have informed our banks is that we
want to make sure that they are following the process and actually
going through the forgiveness process for the loans. We saw some
delays happening across our lending partners and we wanted to en-
sure that those delays were not impacting our small businesses and
that they could process those forgiveness loans so we did not——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Ms. Guzman, all of my questions and all
my comments this morning point to a lack of leadership at the top
with regards to communication and oversight over your staff that
lends to one of two things. Either you have a disdain for us. We
have somebody here that just commented they have responses from
you. Our side does not get them. Is that what is going on here?
Ms. GUZMAN. Absolutely not, Congressman.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Either it is disdain for our side or it is in-
competence. It is one of the two. You cannot continue to do this and
be expected to get something done with this agency. This is an ex-
tremely important agency. Our job here is not just legislative, it is
oversight. And from our standpoint of oversight, you have failed
with a true F.
I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Your time has expired.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Newman.
Ms. NEWMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Rank-
ing Member. And thank you, Administrator Guzman. So good to
see you.
So first of all, thank you for all your leadership. I have seen a
steady incline in activity and the information disbursal of various
PPP issues and EIDL issues. So thank you for all your help. Have
heard it across the board on both sides of the aisle by the way. And
then secondly, I do have a question for you regarding the 504 pro-
gram.
So we know that a record has been made in 2021 that the SBA
has approved $8.2 billion I believe in loan value in fiscal year 2021,
exceeding the $7.5 billion cap. Is the $7.5 billion enough to meet
the increased demand for the 504 loans? And if there is and if you
can share a little bit of editorial around it that would be great.
Thank you.
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you for that question.
The 504 program is an important economic development program
creating jobs. We have that $7.5 billion cap on the program and we
exceeded it last year. So those additional loans, nearly a billion, did
have to sit for up to 3 weeks waiting for us to enter into the new
cycle. So we definitely feel that there is heightened demand on this
product. It is a very popular product and our lenders are doing
great work ensuring that their businesses are served, so we sup-
port the efforts to potentially increase the cap or have flexibility,
just as we do on the 7(a) to adjust that if demand is increased to-
wards the end of the year. And so we support both measures in
terms of flexibility for the administration to adapt to the market-
place demands.
Ms. NEWMAN. Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back.
Now, we recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Williams, Vice
Ranking Member of the Committee for 5 minutes.
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Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you.
Administrator, I am a small business owner currently. I am a
main street America guy. I have got a few simple questions, yes or
no.
Number one, do you support the Bild Back Better Act?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes, I do.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Do you support raising taxes on small busi-
nesses particularly as businesses continue to recover from COVID-
19?
Ms. GUZMAN. The Build Back Better Act does not raise taxes
on small businesses.
Mr. WILLIAMS. No, my question is do you support raising taxes
on small businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. I support the Build Back Better’s raising taxes on
large corporations.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Let the record show Administrator Guzman
supports raising taxes.
Ms. GUZMAN. On large corporations. Yes.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Do you support President Biden’s vaccine man-
date on small businesses with over 100 employees?
Ms. GUZMAN. Over 98 percent of businesses, small businesses
would not be affected by that.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Do you support that?
Ms. GUZMAN. And yes, I do support——
Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes or no, do you support that?
Ms. GUZMAN. I do support that we should vaccinate as much
as possible.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Okay. Are the current supply chain disruptions
having a negative impact on small businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. I am sorry; can you repeat the question?
Mr. WILLIAMS. Supply chain. Is it having disruption, a negative
disruption on small business?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes, supply chain is affecting small businesses.
Mr. WILLIAMS. All right. Administrator Guzman, you are
tasked with leading the SBA, yet you do not know what policies
will hurt or help small businesses. You just showed that a minute
ago. You continue to back the Biden administration’s claim that the
Build Back Better plan would not raise taxes on individuals earn-
ing less than $400,000 per year. However, a recent report by the
bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation debunked that pledge, ex-
posing that this plan would have a significant tax increase for
Americans of all income levels. Higher taxes force business owners
to decide whether to reduce capital, lay off employees or pass the
cost along to the consumers in order to offset increased costs and
maintain profit margins. The bottom mathematics tells you 20 per-
cent is more than 30 percent. So these are difficult decisions
businessowners should not be forced to make and you should be
protecting them.
On top of the looming tax increases, the NFIB reports that 49
percent of small business owners continue to struggle to find work-
ers to fill open positions. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is
imposing overreaching and unconstitutional vaccine mandates that
will cause businesses to lose more employees. We are already fac-
ing a labor shortage and it hurts even more.
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So as the administrator of the SBA, you are charged with aiding,
assisting, and advising small businesses across the country but at
every juncture it seems, at every juncture you have imposed or
supported policies like this Biden administration things that we see
that let businesses down and make doing business even more dif-
ficult. This administration’s actions will lead to more layoffs and
more inflation. Your failure to quickly implement or roll out critical
business-saving programs like the Save Our Stages we talked
about had dire consequences for main street businesses who had
nowhere left to turn, and you continue not to assume any account-
ability for that failure. You have refused to respond in a timely
manner we have heard today to Members of this Committee who
have had urgent questions for businesses in their districts setting
the tone that you and other bureaucrats that work at the SBA are
above the taxpayers you represent is very poor service.
So my last question, Administrator, why should America’s small
business owners like myself and others, why should we put our
trust in the SBA or you even and believe you have their best inter-
est in mind when you have not demonstrated a single action that
serves their best interests while promoting higher taxes and bigger
government? How can we rely on you?
Ms. GUZMAN. The SBA has effectively delivered programs to
small businesses that are helping them even navigate supply chain
challenges, navigate the workforce issues that they are facing, as
well as navigating the rising costs due to the pandemic. Further,
we have been supporting them with access to markets, making
sure that they can increase their revenues, access the federal gov-
ernment. So we believe the SBA is strongly positioned to help small
businesses.
Mr. WILLIAMS. The SBA believes that. Okay. So let me move
on. The SBA believes that. Not small business. Not main street
America.
So, look. This Committee is charged with overseeing the SBA,
and I strongly urge your administration to put the needs and con-
cerns of America’s small business first. And do what Chairman
Luetkemeyer asked you to do. The SBA should be nonpolitical. It
should be nonpolitical. You should be fighting every single day to
cut taxes. You should be fighting every single day to cut regula-
tions to help small business. It should be nonpolitical but you do
not do that. Your support for the Biden administration’s higher
taxes, vaccine mandates and bigger government will shutter small
businesses. We need to turn the SBA around before it is too late
for main street America.
You mentioned about history. History will show that this Small
Business Administration gave small business and main street a gut
punch when we needed a lift more than ever.
I yield my time back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from Georgia, Ms. Bourdeaux,
for 5 minutes.
Ms. BOURDEAUX. Thank you, Chairwoman Velázquez. And
thank you, Administrator Guzman, for taking the time to join us
today.
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As we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is
critical that SBA provide the resources and information necessary
to support the growth of innovative job creating small businesses.
I believe the Community Navigators program and its grantees will
play a critical role in that and I really commend this Committee
and Administrator Guzman for your leadership and the creation
and implementation of that program. My district office has helped
to recover over $15 million for constituent small businesses
through diligent work with SBA’s Georgia District Office. So thank
you so much for that.
We do have a concern that has come up. We have begun to hear
in recent weeks from small businesses about the EIDL program.
The deadline is approaching on December 31st, and so just a couple
questions with respect to that.
First of all, does SBA have a plan to process the EIDL applica-
tions which are pending in queue between now and December 31st?
And will you continue to process the applications after December
31st? Additionally, we are seeing some problems where small busi-
nesses cannot apply because of holdups and delays in the IRS proc-
essing of their 2019 returns. So they are kind of caught in this bind
so the other part of this is SBA working with the IRS to expedite
the processing of these returns or is there something that Congress
can do to ensure some small businesses do not miss out on this
needed relief?
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you so much for the question.
When I arrived, I looked at all of our programs from top to bot-
tom just to see what improvements could be made, especially focus-
ing on customer service technology for process improvements.
COVID EIDL is a program that had challenges but has delivered
nearly $300 billion to businesses across the country. It is affordable
patient capital for our businesses. I have moved the COVID EIDL
program to our Office of Capital Access to ensure that we could le-
verage industry best practices and improve the processing time. In
fact, we went from 2,000 processed applications a day to 37,000.
Over the summer, as a result, we were able to clear 600,000 in
backlogs on the COVID EIDL program. And further, we were able
by the fall to clear a total of a million across the entire COVID
EIDL package, including the grants and the loans. This program,
unfortunately, was challenged with issues in terms of not only
processing but in terms of fraud as was mentioned earlier and we
were able to reinstate a lot of the policies that have been in the
EIDL program, the traditional disaster loan program for years
where we have successfully put out $67 billion of disaster loans
over the years effectively without fraud. So we were very pleased
to be able to reinstate these longstanding fraud controls onto our
program and start to improve customer service as well, which
speaks to your point in terms of being able to process the full de-
mand by the end of the year. We feel good that we have billions
available and that we will be able to distribute those effectively
through the communities and we look forward to working with you
and all your constituents in processing.
We currently do not have a backlog. The challenges that are in
the system for individual borrowers that you might be hearing from
oftentimes are due to appeals, multiple appeals. They are often-
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times due to fraud flags. Again, we have instituted new fraud con-
trols and so these people may have gone through the system pre-
viously without any fraud checks and so we are now going through
that. So we do feel good about processing the applications. The will
be allowed to apply through December 31st and then we will proc-
ess them after that. So that is the deadline. The same for the tar-
geted advance, that $10,000 grant. Businesses can apply all the
way through December 31st. The supplemental targeted advance is
the only one that will have to be processed and distributed before
December 31st. So that means your constituents who are eligible
for that additional $5,000 grant will need to apply by approxi-
mately December 10th.
In terms of the IRS processing, we have, as I have said, cleared
the backlog on this important program. And so we have effectively
been able to administer it. We do feel that, unfortunately, for those
who did not file 2019 taxes, the processing time for a paper appli-
cation without errors is about 30 days. We are seeing that that
could be much longer, up to 20 weeks if they have an amendment.
So unfortunately for that, processing times, they are going to need
to coordinate closely with the IRS and make sure that all their doc-
uments are in order, but if they have their 2019 taxes, we are able
to process them efficiently thanks to the improvements and the
gains that we have made on the program.
Ms. BOURDEAUX. If we can continue to work with you on that
because we are getting a ton of complaints into our office right now
where people, I absolutely support the anti-fraud measures, of
course, but also want to make sure we are actually able to get
things done for the small businesses. But thank you so much for
the answer.
I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady’s time has expired.
Now, we recognize the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Underserved, Agricultural, and Rural Business Development from
Minnesota, Mr. Hagedorn.
Mr. HAGEDORN. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Mem-
ber Luetkemeyer. I appreciate the hearing. Administrator, it is
good to see you.
I used to be a congressional relations officer for two nonpartisan
Treasury agencies and I would always tell my boss, you know, be-
fore we go testify on Capitol Hill, let’s make sure that we answer
the questions of the Members that we are going to go testify in
front of. What we actually tried to do was answer their questions.
You did not do that. It looks like you did like kind of a data dump.
You just got all of our letters that have been sitting around for
months and months and then sent us back a form letter. I sent you
a letter on May 20th talking about the Restaurant Revitalization
program. A pretty important program which is still out there. A lot
of America’s restaurant owners are hurting. You did not send any-
thing back talking about that. And then I asked, well, what is
going on with this Biden Executive Order on equity? How are you
going to be revamping things down at SBA in order to meet that?
Again, I got nothing back. I got two paragraphs of just a bunch of
form stuff.
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So Madam Chair, I would like to introduce these into the record
if I could at this time.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. HAGEDORN. But I think what is going on here is I really
do not probably need an answer anymore to figure out what is hap-
pening with the whole equity exercise down at SBA because the
Restaurant Revitalization Fund was really the first part of the
woke agenda. That was the fund where it was decided there were
going to be about $28.5 billion for restaurant owners who were
hurt during the COVID situation and the Democrats and Biden de-
cided they were going to have a priority list. And everybody on the
priority list could get their application in early and get their money
first and the people who were not on the priority list, well, they
had to wait in line and hopefully they get some money sometime.
The people on the priority list were pretty much everybody but
white males. And lo and behold, all sorts of applications came in,
all sorts of money went out. A lot of people were paid, and of
course, the monies ran out and Congress and the administration,
nobody has done anything about it since. There are hundreds of
thousands of people out there who own restaurants and bars who
happen to be white males who never received any money.
Now, the people who did receive the money on the priority list,
and I am for that. I want them all to get the money, but everybody
should be treated equally. We should not be discriminating one
way or the other. Every person who is a restaurant owner should
be treated the same way. I think that is what everybody wants.
But the folks that did get the money, do you know what they used
it for? They went out and hired staff. They fixed up their res-
taurants. They paid bills. They did a whole bunch of things. Maybe
advertised. They did everything they could to bring the customers
back in the store. The people who did not get the money, some of
them might be across the street, they probably went broke. They
are hurting. They do not have that money to lure in new staff, in-
crease their wages and so forth.
Do you think that is fair, Administrator, that people on the pri-
ority list were given this money and the people not on the priority
list were not? Do you think that is fair?
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you, Congressman. And just to address the
letter concern, we will definitely continue to be in correspondence
with your office, and I welcome any calls that you want to place
to me. I know that several of you have been connecting with my
staff but I will definitely make sure that those are addressed.
In terms of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund program, the
SBA worked diligently to try to administer the program as quickly
as possible working in close collaboration with key stakeholders
like the NRA and others. We administered the program that was
laid out by Congress.
Mr. HAGEDORN. I asked you if it was fair. Is it fair that some
restaurant owners were given money and other restaurant owners
still do not have it? It is an unfair competition; right?
Ms. GUZMAN. Well, my charge is to administer the programs
that are given to me and ensure that——
Mr. HAGEDORN. Okay. Well, part of your charge then was to
put together a bill with the administration which had the priority
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list in there which gave people an advantage over other restaurant
owners. Totally unfair. We do not need this in America. We want
everybody to be treated equally. This whole equity stuff needs to
go away. This woke stuff needs to go away. Treat every American
citizen, every American business the same way. If you are going to
be giving out government grants, let’s make sure that everyone has
the same opportunity. I think that is what America is all about. At
least that is what I think.
Now, you are traveling the country quite a bit; right? You are
getting around. I am, too, in the district in Minnesota. Can you tell
me any small business owners that have come up to you in the last
4 or 5 months about this Build Back Better bill that want higher
taxes, more regulations, that want higher energy costs through this
Green New Deal stuff that is coming along? Is anybody begging for
that?
Ms. GUZMAN. What small businesses are telling me is that they
are having trouble finding workforce. That healthcare costs are
high. Childcare costs are high. And Build Back Better will address
those issues to try to help our small businesses with their work-
force——
Mr. HAGEDORN. Well, you have not heard any business owner
say please raise my taxes, increase my regulations, and make my
energy costs go up; correct?
Ms. GUZMAN. Small businesses have not——
Mr. HAGEDORN. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back.
Now, we recognize the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Over-
sight, Investigations, and Regulations from Minnesota, Mr. Phil-
lips, for 5 minutes.
Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you, Madam Chair. And greetings, Ad-
ministrator Guzman.
I want to thank you for your work on behalf of small businesses.
I know how tough these days have been for small businesses all
around the country and for you and your team at the SBA. You
have played an integral role in America’s recovery from the pan-
demic and most of us are grateful, especially small business own-
ers.
I want to begin with the RRF, the Restaurant Revitalization
Fund. When it was first opened to applicants as we all know, Con-
gress reserved the first 21 days of the application period for pri-
ority groups, including women and veterans and socially and eco-
nomically disadvantaged entrepreneurs, the people that needed the
support the most. My colleague from Minnesota argues that we
have got to get rid of equity. I just happen to believe that we
should support those who have been denied access and opportunity.
I think America is at its best when we support those who have big
dreams, especially entrepreneurs, especially veterans. And when I
talk about equity, not just economic and racial, but geographic,
rural America. We should be supporting entrepreneurs in those
parts of the country as well.
And while the SBA, of course, succeeded in distributing billions
of dollars to disadvantaged groups, we all know that the lawsuits
ruled that those were unlawful, and 3,000 priority applicants were
left in the cold due to depletion of the funds. I know that you were
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frustrated by this because, of course, the guiding purpose of the
SBA in my estimation is to promote entrepreneurship and help un-
derserved small businesses, the very ones that were denied funds.
So my first question is a simple one. Should we consider addi-
tional financial relief to the most hard-hit industries and small
businesses in categories that have been denied funding?
Ms. GUZMAN. With similar programs like the Restaurant Revi-
talization Fund, the Shuttered Venues Operator Grant that we
have been able to effectively distribute over $12 billion in relief,
these hard-hit industries do need additional assistance. As I am
meeting with businesses around the country, they still need relief,
which is why we are thankful that we have the COVID Economic
Injury Disaster Loan to offer them but this is a loan, not a grant.
And so we continue to try to support them though with resources
and these loan offerings. And if Congress were to fund hard-hit in-
dustry grants, SBA would focus on effectively distributing them as
equitably as possible.
Mr. PHILLIPS. Okay. And Administrator, do you know how
much additional funding would be necessary to fully replenish the
RRF and ensure that those that were denied funding that other-
wise qualified can still receive it?
Ms. GUZMAN. Within the RRF, we still had a pending of over
$44 billion, $44.1 billion of requests within the system.
Mr. PHILLIPS. So theoretically, small businesses that qualified
but simply were denied because we did not allocate enough; is that
fair?
Ms. GUZMAN. We did not finish processing all of those applica-
tions.
Mr. PHILLIPS. Okay.
Ms. GUZMAN. And so those are the pending, what we deem,
what we can guess at eligible businesses that were not immediately
remoted.
Mr. PHILLIPS. Okay. With my remaining couple of minutes, Ad-
ministrator, I want to acknowledge in a very bipartisan fashion
that one of our fundamental responsibilities on this Committee is
oversight, especially considering the size of the support programs
that Congress has initiated during the pandemic and the ones that
you are administering. Every fraudulent dollar that goes out is one
less that we can allocate to businesses that qualify. We would all
agree with that.
So what can our Committee do to support oversight of the SBA
programs, especially the recent pandemic programs, whether that
be congressional directives or additional resources?
Ms. GUZMAN. SBA has been able to utilize administrative fund-
ing to continue to try to build in strong processes and technologies
as well as controls to make sure that these funds get into the
hands of the businesses it was intended to serve. We will continue
to work with the IG closely and the GAO to make sure that we are
implementing the remainder of the recommendations that are in
place across our COVID EIDL, PPP, and all of our relief programs,
as well as our CORE programs. And so that continued support and
collaboration is what we deem necessary to continue to support
anti-fraud measures.
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Mr. PHILLIPS. Okay. And we all know that, of course, you are
working hard and others to identify fraud and those who inappro-
priately received funding. What is the current process and what is
the timeline for clawing back those fraudulent loans and disburse-
ments?
Ms. GUZMAN. My apologies. Is that on a specific program, Con-
gressman or just——
Mr. PHILLIPS. More of a broad question because I know there
is fraud in a variety of programs.
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes.
Mr. PHILLIPS. But just in broad strokes, especially through the
more recent programs.
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, we are working
closely with the IG and the Department of Justice to make sure
that if there is identified fraud that they are able to fully prosecute
and recover those funds. The IG has already worked to recollect
millions of dollars across the PPP program and the COVID EIDL
program and we continue to support their work as they do so
across all of our programs.
Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you. I see my time has expired. I yield
back. Thank you so much.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman’s time has expired.
We recognize the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Stauber, for 5
minutes.
Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Administrator Guzman, thank you for being here to testify. I
have to say it has been difficult getting some response from you or
your office.
But as you recall, back in May, when you were in front of this
Committee over 6 months ago, I asked you a series of questions re-
garding the Biden administration’s small business tax increase pro-
posals that you could not answer. You said to me in this Committee
at the time that you would follow up with my office with answers
to my questions. It has been 6 months. No follow up to me or my
staff. So at that time I was asking you about proposals but now we
have in writing the tax increase the Biden administration plans to
impose on small businesses. Given you have had 6 months to figure
out a response, I am going to ask you once again these questions.
How many small businesses are organized as a subchapter C cor-
poration?
Ms. GUZMAN. The majority of businesses are not organized as
C corporations. I do not have the exact number of those businesses.
Mr. STAUBER. Does the Build Back Better legislation increase
the corporate tax rate?
Ms. GUZMAN. The Build Back Better framework actually fo-
cuses on leveling the playing fields. And I agree with the 3/4 of
small businesses polled who want to see large corporations pay
their fair share. And so the Build Back Better framework focuses
on that, making sure that our large corporations, those that pay
zero including are the ones who are covering for this.
Mr. STAUBER. The question was does the Build Back Better leg-
islation increase the corporate tax rate?
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Ms. GUZMAN. It provides for a minimum corporate tax rate of
15 percent that will affect less than 200 large corporations so it
will not affect our small businesses.
Mr. STAUBER. It will not affect the small businesses at all?
Ms. GUZMAN. It will affect less than 200 of the largest corpora-
tions, the 15 percent corporate tax. Correct.
Mr. STAUBER. So the Build Back Better legislation is going to
increase the corporate tax rate as you just said on small businesses
subchapter C. According to the Tax Foundation, this tax increase
is going to reduce the GDP and cost about 25,000 jobs. How many
small businesses are organized as pass-through businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. Many more are pass-through entities. A majority
of them are.
Mr. STAUBER. So the majority, 95 percent?
Ms. GUZMAN. I do not have those exact numbers.
Mr. STAUBER. Well, the answer is nearly 95 percent of all small
businesses that you oversee in this country are pass-throughs.
Does the Build Back Better legislation increase taxes on pass-
through taxes?
Ms. GUZMAN. President Biden’s plan never focused on the—I
am assuming you are talking about the 199A. And no, it did not
ever propose that. President Biden’s proposal in this current frame-
work does not include the 199A either.
Mr. STAUBER. So you are telling us that legislation will not in-
crease taxes on 95 percent of the businesses that are pass-through;
is that correct?
Ms. GUZMAN. The current BBB proposal does not increase—
does not affect the 199A. So small businesses will not be affected
by that.
Mr. STAUBER. According to the Tax Foundation, this tax in-
crease is going to eliminate 16,000 jobs. Do you agree with that?
Ms. GUZMAN. I know that economists are still debating what
those final impacts are. We believe strong that the Build Back Bet-
ter plan will actually crease jobs and will help small businesses, es-
pecially when it comes to their workforce, educating their work-
force, creating workforce development opportunities, lowering the
cost of childcare so we can get more people back to work. Those are
really important things to small businesses, as well as the cost of
healthcare which is rising and this Build Back Better framework
will decrease those costs.
Mr. STAUBER. Have you ever owned a small business?
Ms. GUZMAN. I have, yes.
Mr. STAUBER. As a pass-through?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes; correct.
Mr. STAUBER. Okay. Do you still own it?
Ms. GUZMAN. No, I do not.
Mr. STAUBER. Okay. Another thing I would like to have a short
conversation with you. You were in our great state of Minnesota
just a few months ago and we appreciate that. You came with my
democratic colleagues to Minneapolis. There are two of us that sit
on this Committee that were not invited. Was it for political rea-
sons that we were not invited to celebrate and encourage small
businesses in the state of Minnesota? Can you tell us why you did
not reach out to us?
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Ms. GUZMAN. Congressman, I would welcome a visit with you.
And if an invitation is extended, I would love to travel with you
to meet with your small businesses and see how we can further
help them.
Mr. STAUBER. Did you even think about inviting us in rural
Minnesota? You talk about rural America. We represent rural Min-
nesota. We were not even invited by somebody such as your stature
to come into Minnesota and celebrate small businesses. Would you
agree maybe that was a misstep on your part by not inviting us,
two Members of the Small Business Committee?
Ms. GUZMAN. While I was not in your district? I would welcome
the opportunity to extend my stay or go directly just with you in
the future.
Mr. STAUBER. Last thing is—okay, my time is up. I yield back.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman’s time has expired.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Chu, for 5
minutes.
Ms. CHU. Administrator Guzman, I believe that the Build Back
Better bill will truly help small businesses. And in fact, I am proud
that it includes $275 million for the authorization and funding for
the Community Advantage program. We know that Community
Advantage is an effective tool for increasing access to capital for
underserved small businesses with SBA data showing that the pro-
gram reaches significantly more female and minority businesses.
That is because Community Advantage lenders have the necessary
relationships within their communities to facilitate lending to the
small businesses that need it most. These mission-driven lenders
are not only skilled inn localized character-based lending but also
provide hands-on coaching to borrowers, many of whom are over-
looked by big banks.
Can you talk about how you see Community Advantage figuring
into SBA’s long-term recovery plans, particularly your plans to im-
prove capital access for underserved businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes. Thank you so much for that question.
Community Advantage is an important pilot program that the
Office of Capital Access administers and it does allow us to better
reach those underserved communities through great community fi-
nancial institutions like the CDFIs. We want to continue to expand
all of our lending partnerships as we have been able to during PPP
and continue to grow that. Permanence of the Community Advan-
tage program will mean certainty for these lenders and that is
what they need to continue to expand in the program and we look
forward to Build Back Better’s proposal to do that as well as fund
it for a 10-year basis and definitely support our smallest entities
and those underserved communities and have a far reach within
every corner of our nation. In addition, that actually also helps us
to fortify those banking relationships which we rely on to distribute
our loans. They were great partners for us during PPP with the ac-
ceptance of fees and as we look towards direct lending we will rely
on that strong network of community financial institutions to de-
ploy small dollar loans into communities across the country.
Ms. CHU. Thank you for that. And there is another very positive
thing that Build Back Better does for our small businesses and
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that is provide $60 million to improve the program’s outreach with
the Small Business Investment Company or SBIC program. And I
am proud that my legislation to allow more bank capital to be in-
vested in SBICs, the Investing in main street Act did pass the
House earlier this month and, in fact, would enable these banks to
invest up to 15 percent of their capital and surplus in SBA licensed
small business investment companies which will significantly help
startups that have grown into companies like Tesla and Apple.
So could you talk about how the SBIC program can help our
small business recovery and discuss how the Build Back Better
Act’s investment can strengthen the program over the long-term?
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you. Yes, we believe that the Build Back
Better will strengthen our SBIC program. Right now we have 300
private SBICs distributing capital across the nation to our small
businesses. We really want to focus on making sure small busi-
nesses outside of those venture capital rich areas of the nation and
private equity rich areas have access to capital through our SBICs.
And so with emerging managers as well as micro funds, we will be
able to further expand our SBIC pipeline of strong private equity
and venture firms to be able to support our small businesses with
leverage from the federal government.
Ms. CHU. And finally, let me ask about the Community Navi-
gator program. I understand that the grants have been awarded to
51 HUB organizations but it was very competitive. And I have
heard from disappointed organizations like community groups and
mission-based lenders who were not selected but remain eager to
contribute to the program. I know that the Community Navigator
program relies on community groups that can reach the hardest to
reach businesses. Can these mission-based lenders still be part of
the Community Navigator program?
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you. Yes, we received over 700 applica-
tions for the Community Navigator pilot program and I think that
really is exciting because it speaks to the heightened attention on
small business development across our cities and counties and non-
profits across our ecosystems. We believe that we can continue to
integrate all partners within that hub and spoke framework,
whether they are working directly as a spoke with one of those
grantee organizations or as part of an ecosystem leveraging any of
our programs, whether it is the capital programs or other grant
programs. So we look forward to continuing to build that out with
all of those community financial institutions and others.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady’s time has expired.
Now, we recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the Rank-
ing Member of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax, and
Capital Access, Mr. Meuser for 5 minutes.
Mr. MEUSER. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. And
thank you to our Ranking Member Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Ad-
ministrator, for being here.
So small businesses are struggling. In spite of the high level of
consumer spending that is taking place, small businesses are mak-
ing less. They are dealing with inflation. All this should be nothing
new to you. Organizations like the NFIB are stating this as loudly
as they can to the administration. There are workforce shortages.
Serious workforce shortages. Every small business I walk into, and
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I am sure you, too, is beside themselves with being so busy and
making less and trying to figure things out. Supply shortages.
Their shelves, their inventory, their warehouses are much less than
they would prefer. Energy costs are baffling them. Gasoline prices,
heating, you name it for their trucks, for their deliveries. Every-
thing is going up. Wages are going up. That is usually a good thing
but in this case it is going up a little bit too fast. These mandates
that are being discussed are very, very unclear and it is really
making many businesses very, very nervous as to what to do. You
know all this. Potential tax increases.
Now, Administrator, you said small businesses will not be facing
any tax increases. That just is not accurate. The 3.8 percent Medi-
care surtax, which expands the Medicare surtax to invest in indi-
viduals actively involved in S corporations or partnerships. So in
other words, if a company with 50 employees was bringing in $10
million in revenues, they will maybe net $1 million at the end of
the year. They will be paying 3.8 percent on that $600,000, the
delta between the 400.
So, now it is a pass-through. So that business will be paying that
extra. Now, he might be paying himself, or she, $100,000,
$200,000, $250,000, $350,000 a year but they are still being taxed
as a pass-through business. So stating that small business is not
paying more tax—and by the way, that is a big number. That 3.8
percent, if I believe offhand, that is in the neighborhood of $300 bil-
lion of new taxes, of revenues. So I do not know how we can say
small business is not getting any new taxes when you are scoring
it at $300 billion.
And then, of course, NOL is being changed. The IRS enforce-
ment. That is going to be wonderful for small business. I was
former revenue secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The last thing you do without making it a higher quality level of
information for those auditors to work off of is just add 87,000 new
people and think they are going to go out and shotgun approach
on small business because they are the easiest victims, to go in and
audit them randomly. And the idea that it would raise $400 billion
is absolutely nonsense. Come on. You went to the Wharton School
of Business. I mean, it just came back CBO I think said $120 bil-
lion. That is about right. So there is a lot of phony-baloney stuff
in here.
So I just want to ask you, do you advocate for small businesses?
When you talk to the president, do you say, Mr. President, these
taxes, inflation, gasoline prices, you know, you have your spokes-
person Jen Psaki and a new potential controller of the banks say-
ing how it is a great thing to ruin fossil fuel companies and oil com-
panies and gasoline companies. Somehow that is a good thing be-
cause then we move into green energy. I mean, do you say, hey,
we have got to rethink some of these things, Administrator?
Ms. GUZMAN. My responsibility is to, of course, administer the
programs of the SBA as well as visit with these businesses and
hear their concerns which, of course, I agree with you the supply
chain and the workforce issues have been challenging for them. We
have been focusing on getting them support so that they can navi-
gate these issues.
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In terms of some of the specific issues that you addressed, like
the Medicare tax loophole, that really again is still focused on those
individuals making more than $400,000. So the majority of small
businesses will not be affected and that really what it does is focus
on making sure that investments are treated the same way as your
business income. And so whatever the issue might be, the note that
this Build Back Better agenda is focused on leveling the playing
field and that is where small businesses have free——
Mr. MEUSER. I do not think it held any ROI whatsoever for the
economy and you have got economists agreeing with me. The lend-
ing product you bring up. Now, we had two test programs, the RRF
and the EIDL, all run by the SBA. And I think you have got a good
staff. In Pennsylvania you have got a good staff. But they are com-
pletely understaffed. They have nowhere near the IT systems and
the RRF was a disaster. Let’s face it. And the EIDL had $67 billion
plus in fraud and yet you are saying you want a self-run, internally
run lending product within the SBA to add onto what we know is
already a disaster?
Ms. GUZMAN. The SBA has been doing direct lending for over
68 years. We have had a $67 billion portfolio within our disaster
products without these incidences of fraud. These are unique to the
COVID EIDL product as a result of the CARES Act requiring that
the SBA not collect tax documentation.
Mr. MEUSER. I am sorry, I have to yield back. But a joint part-
nership with banks and the SBA clearly worked a lot better.
I yield back, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms.
Houlahan for 5 minutes.
Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you
very much for being here as well.
My question is going to be forward-looking at a future program
I am hoping and I very much thank you for being with me in our
community. The last time we saw one another we were walking in
the streets of Philadelphia and we were talking to small business
owners back there. Sadly, since then, since your visit, my district
was hit hard not just by the pandemic and supply chain constraints
which I know a lot of folks have been hitting on today but also by
Hurricane Ida, and we are under a federal state of emergency.
So today, I want to talk about relief for our small businesses and
owners who have been impacted by natural disasters that are not
pandemic. Following this devastating storm, I heard from many of
our small businesses in our community who are continuing to re-
cover through no fault of their own from the pandemic and now
from this natural disaster. One of these businesses was Animated
Brewing, a brewery in Coatesville. And during the visit to their
business, the co-owners expressed their hesitancy around applying
for an SBA loan. While they very much appreciated a low or no-
interest option, they simply did not have the capacity at that time
to pay it back. Their losses from the storm were too great and their
losses from pandemic as well. And another business similarly in-
formed my office that they would rather be closing their doors in
the coming months rather than incurring yet another bill to pay.
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These businesses represent nationwide concerns with the lack of
direct aid that is available to small businesses that follow a natural
disaster. Natural disasters, as we have mentioned, are not dis-
similar to the shocks such as a pandemic and according to the Fed-
eral Emergency Management Agency, almost 40 to 60 percent of
small businesses are never able to reopen their doors after such a
disaster.
Which leads me to a question that I have heard over and over
again since Hurricane Ida has hit my region. Why can there no be
a loan forgiveness or grant program available similar to PPP to
help small businesses recover from natural disasters just as Con-
gress has provided to respond to the public health crisis of COVID?
Given the anticipated increase in frequency of climate change-re-
lated natural disasters such as Hurricane Ida, I am interested in
this concept and interested in your response. Do you think that the
status quo is sufficiently meeting demand for natural disaster expe-
riences by small businesses? Should the SBA play a bigger role in
supporting small businesses that are recovering from a natural dis-
aster beyond low interest rate loans?
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you. Yes, we do agree that recovery is a
long tail for communities and for businesses, and I would like to
see the SBA engaging more in that recovery and providing support,
whether it is connecting to affordable capital, if that is the right
fit, or providing some other technical assistance to help those com-
munities recover.
Ms. HOULAHAN. Or potentially similar to PPP loan programs
that become grants with certain conditions met.
So Congress set up a PPP program in recognition of the impor-
tance to small businesses to the overall economy of communities
nationwide and to the unique and historic nature of the pandemic.
Perhaps maybe there could be a federal emergency protection pro-
gram similarly that parallels something like this. Do you see the
parallels that exist between incidents of climate-related disasters
or natural disasters and pandemic?
Ms. GUZMAN. Businesses are dramatically affected during dis-
asters. I mean, the FEMA data shows that if they do not reopen
in 5 days, 80 percent chance that they will be closed within a year.
So the effects are devastating which is why it is so important to
invest in climate solutions and why we would want to continue to
support our small businesses with whatever tools Congress pro-
vides to us.
Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you. And what are the biggest lessons
you think that we learn from PPP that could be considered when
crafting a similar program for natural disasters?
Ms. GUZMAN. Well, one thing that we found is 11 million loans,
and seen a lot of sole proprietors especially come into the program
in 2021 and small employers, 20 and under that were not served
previously. We think that those are key lessons learned to dem-
onstrate that there is a demand out there for capital and that busi-
nesses can leverage capital to grow effectively which is why direct
lending is such an important product because we are seeing that
there is a decline in small dollar loans out there available to our
smallest entities and we would like to try to solve for some of those
huge market gaps.
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Administrator Guzman, one of the things that
I was struck by with the crisis of pandemic and with the PPP hav-
ing been stood up so rapidly but also expanded as you mentioned
to a vast array of businesses that would not have historically been
considered in these sorts of opportunities and programs, we have
created the neuropathways and the memory mechanisms. We have
created the business banking relationships that small businesses
now have with each other. We have also created the relationships
that the SBA now has with the banking industry. We really ought
to be able to take advantage of this and pivot this to what will be
inevitably in the future increasingly more and more natural disas-
ters and more people needing help with this.
Thank you so much once again for visiting our community and
I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from New York, Ms. Tenney, for
5 minutes.
Ms. TENNEY. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And also to the
Ranking Member. And thank you, Administrator, for being here
today. I did send you a list of questions in May and I am hoping
that at some point you will follow up since I have not received an
answer yet. I know you are getting yourself organized in the posi-
tion but we really have pressing questions that we need to ask.
My first question I want to ask you is during your confirmation
hearing in the Senate, you promised to investigate why the SBA
wrongfully approved small business loans for multiple Planned
Parenthood affiliates. However, since the SBA has proceeded to
confirm an additional six loans for Planned Parenthood affiliates,
including $10 million for Planned Parenthood of Greater New York.
As you are aware, and as this legislation states, federal funds can-
not be used to pay for abortions and all applicants for PPP loans
must abide by affiliation rules and size standards. Since Planned
Parenthood has over 16,000 employees nationwide that makes
them ineligible. Has the SBA forgiven any of the PPP loans that
have gone to Planned Parenthood?
Ms. GUZMAN. I do not have a status on individual loans to
share with you.
Ms. TENNEY. Have any of them that you know generally been
forgiven?
Ms. GUZMAN. That I am not aware of. I know that we have con-
tinued to process those loans in the order. And as you know, bor-
rowers attest under PPP for their eligibility.
Ms. TENNEY. Will you forgive those loans? I started to reclaim
my time. But will you forgive those loans at this point? Is that a
policy that you are taking?
Ms. GUZMAN. Fortunately, it is not up to me to determine indi-
viduals loans. There is a process in place for all loans.
Ms. TENNEY. But you as the administrator have the ultimate
say. Will you actually not allow those loans, not allow their forgive-
ness, and will you ask them to pay the money back?
Ms. GUZMAN. They will be processed according to the rules that
were administered by the SBA that have been made public and
that have been shared with our lenders.
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Ms. TENNEY. So what you are saying is that based on the rules
and based on the rules of the legislation that you will be denying
that forgiveness and you will also be requiring them to pay back
based on a rules based?
Ms. GUZMAN. I am not speaking to any individual PPP eligi-
bility.
Ms. TENNEY. But can you say that based on the rules that we
just outlined, the fact that they are not eligible, that you would say
in a reasonable estimate that those loans would not be forgiven
and therefore, you would ask for that money to be paid back?
Ms. GUZMAN. I am not the one who individually investigates
specific eligibility.
Ms. TENNEY. I am asking you as the administrator. You obvi-
ously have a position. You would ultimate make this decision if it
came to your desk; right?
Ms. GUZMAN. My positions and my political choices are not at
play here. It is really just the process and the rules that are in
place for both the borrowers to attest to their eligibility and for the
lenders to determine if they will process based on that eligibility
and that attestation.
Ms. TENNEY. Right. And so——
Ms. GUZMAN. Further——
Ms. TENNEY. Can I just add?
Ms. GUZMAN. Sure.
Ms. TENNEY. I do not mean to harp on this but if it was deter-
mined by your people and the people that work under you that
they were actually forgiving the loans, would you overrule that de-
cision because it is not based on the rules that are set forth in the
statute?
Ms. GUZMAN. I would not overrule the processing that is in
place that is abiding by the rules. So the process does abide by the
rules and determines eligibility. Again, the borrower attests to the
eligibility. The bankers are then processing those PPP loans.
Ms. TENNEY. Do you know the rules that say that they are not
eligible. Is that something you are aware of?
Ms. GUZMAN. I know our affiliation rules broadly but I have not
investigated any particular loans of the 11 million loans that we
have processed at the SBA.
Ms. TENNEY. Okay. Just one more question because I have a
little time left.
In your remarks, you talked about gaps in access to capital and
you make no mention of SBA initiatives addressing the fact that
most venture capital and early stage funding flows to just a few cit-
ies around the country and many are left behind, including my up-
state rural suburban district. And you make no mention of the fact
that very little investment, including SBA’s own programs goes to
innovative capital-intensive businesses that are in the manufac-
turing sector that once supported our middle class. Is that some-
thing you are going to be considering as adding more options and
supporting the legislation that I have and others that would give
more loans to businesses that have long-term prospects, long-term
manufacturing, and would rebuild and reindustrialize the regions
such as mine that were once the home of the beginning of the in-
dustrial revolution?
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Ms. GUZMAN. Yes. We completely support building up a manu-
facturing base in America. The Made in America initiative focuses
on that and we have key programs to support that, whether it is
on our lending program or encouraging manufacturing support
within our SBIC program.
Ms. TENNEY. One last thing that my colleague alluded to. The
current nominee for control of the currency is talking about ending
private bank accounts and putting them in the hands of the federal
reserve. Do you support that initiative?
Ms. GUZMAN. I just support that small businesses have options
to find banking institutions that can support them or lenders that
support them and my job as the administrator is to make sure that
those——
Ms. TENNEY. So you do not support them giving their bank ac-
counts over to the federal reserve?
Ms. GUZMAN. I do not have information on that to share any-
thing further.
Ms. TENNEY. Thank you.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back.
Now, we recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Kim, for
5 minutes.
Mr. KIM. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Adminis-
trator, thank you for coming today.
I hope you take away from this hearing that there is a lot of bi-
partisan engagement when it comes to our restaurants. That this
is something that I think we need to make sure that we are
prioritizing to the level that we are hearing. I want you to know
that from my district that is still the number one issue that I hear
about when it comes to small businesses. And the job is not done.
I wish we were able to put in additional funds into the Restaurant
Revitalization Fund. I certainly supported that from the outset to
avoid the problem that we had that was foreseeable. We knew
there was going to be a challenge there. And I want to find a way
to fix it. But you know, you have talked about this already, but we
talked about it in terms of the amount of money to be able to put
in. And I certainly support funding this more. But I also wanted
to ask you what flexibility does SBA need from Congress in statute
if we were able to provide additional funding for the Restaurant
Revitalization Fund. We want to make sure that we ensure that no
applicant at the end of the queue is left off without relief again.
My understanding it is not just about the funding; that there are
other elements here that we need to be considering here. So I just
wanted to get your take on this.
Ms. GUZMAN. Congress would need to fully fund the Restaurant
Revitalization Fund program so that we could support the remain-
der of the restaurants who have applied or put a cap on the pro-
gram so that whatever the funds allocated to lessen the $44.1 bil-
lion would be enough to cover those applications in the pool. We
would be happy to work with you to further look at those numbers.
Mr. KIM. Yeah. Because I think we are hearing, again, in a bi-
partisan way a desire to make sure that our restaurants and our
communities are getting that kind of support. And I hope that my
colleagues across both parties work together to be able to do that.
I certainly stand ready to do that myself.
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What I also wanted to talk to you about is just as you were talk-
ing to my colleague about sort of the long road to recovery head
that we have when it comes to small businesses. And I agree with
you that right now we are certainly having a crisis point. But I
think we understand that this is not going to just go away over-
night. This is going to be a long road to recovery. So I guess I
wanted to just get a sense from you how you see this unfolding
here. There are particular industries and small businesses that you
think are going to have a longer road to recovery and a tougher
time. How do you sort of see this unfolding over the course of the
next few years, over the course of the next couple years of this ad-
ministration for instance?
Ms. GUZMAN. Small businesses polled, as well as those that I
meet with project that there will be months of uncertainty still re-
maining for them as we fight the pandemic. The number one thing
is to fight the pandemic and make sure that we can get more peo-
ple vaccinated so that people start to consume services as much as
they have been consuming our products and goods. And so that
first and foremost has to be the priority. Saving our small busi-
nesses means vaccinating and implementing strong protocols to
help recover from the pandemic which is underlying as economists
agree the supply chain challenges and the workforce challenges
that including our small businesses are facing.
So as we move forward, we really believe that we need to have
the tools in place around access to capital to make sure that we are
supporting small businesses, especially those startups, those over
9 million business applications I referenced earlier. We want to
make sure that they can be equipped with the technical assistance,
the capital, and the access to markets that they need to grow
strong businesses for our communities and for our economy.
Mr. KIM. Look, I am glad to hear that, and the reason why I
mentioned this question is I was reading through your testimony
and you used a phrase to describe SBA. You said it was first re-
sponders. And I understand what you are getting at with that, say-
ing that SBA is the first responder in terms of this crisis and cer-
tainly the struggles that have been there. But I think I would like
to push back with you a little bit on that. What I have heard from
the small businesses in my district is that it is about a relation-
ship. It is about a deeper engagement. A lot of the small businesses
in my community up until the last 18 months had very little, if
any, connection with SBA. Had very little understanding of what
SBA, what tools you had and things like that. You now have an
opportunity here not just to connect with them for the Restaurant
Revitalization Fund or the Paycheck Protection Program, but I
urge you to build off of that. Now that you have connected with so
many small businesses in their time of need, build off of that in
terms of letting them know what next. As a first responder, yes,
you provide that kind of initial support but I do not want you to
think that they are just going to then move on off and that is not
your responsibility. And I just want to make sure that we are en-
gaged on that over the course of the long term. Thank you. I yield
back.
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes. I would be happy to do that.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back.
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Now we recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Garbarino,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. GARBARINO. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Admin-
istrator, for being here today.
I have been watching the hearing in my office and I walked over.
My colleague before had asked you if you had spoken to the presi-
dent and let them know whether you agree with some of the poli-
cies that are coming back in BBB and your answer was your job
is to administer programs and to meet with small businesses and
hear their concerns. So what do you do with those concerns after
you hear them? Where do they go? I mean, you are hearing their
concerns. Do you just not share them with the president or——
Ms. GUZMAN. No, that was perhaps taken out of context or not
fully communicated properly. But yes, of course, I share what I am
hearing in the field from our small businesses, from our district of-
fices, from our resource partners to relay that they are having sup-
ply chain concerns. That they are having workforce challenges.
This is a whole of government approach to fighting this pandemic
and making sure that we implement solutions to help our small
businesses, as well as our economy broadly recover from COVID.
And of course, I share as much as I can in terms of that outreach
that I have been doing and the results that I receive.
Mr. GARBARINO. So with Build Back Better coming and as you
said, small businesses are coming out of COVID, one of the in-
creases in taxes which small businesses are going to see even
though they are saying there is going to be no increase on small
businesses is the permanent extension of the loss limitation deduc-
tion. I mean, that is something that right now it is law but this
would extend that. And spend $167 billion by extending this per-
manently. How is that not seen as a tax increase, especially for
businesses that are coming out of this COVID debacle which every-
thing was shut down and they could not make any money. They
have probably taken tons of losses. How is making this loss limita-
tion deduction permanent not an increase on taxes on small busi-
nesses, something that they were probably planning on getting
back?
Ms. GUZMAN. Businesses will definitely continue to be able to
take their business losses against their business. This was dealing
with investments specifically. And the most important thing is that
this is broadly about leveling the playing field for our small busi-
nesses and they do agree that large corporations, those 55 large
corporations, profitable corporations that paid zero was just not
enough. They would like to see parity and I agree that that should
be the case that everyone pays their fair share and that we are
able to ensure that the resources are available to support our infra-
structure as well as build back better with strengthening our care
economy and fighting climate change. And so I believe whole-
heartedly that small businesses will benefit greatly from Build
Back Better and that they will not see the effect. They will see a
level playing field instead.
Mr. GARBARINO. So you do not think raising taxes on certain
corporations which other small businesses do business with, wheth-
er it is energy or transportation, that when these businesses have
to pay more in taxes, these major corporations you call them have
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to pay more in taxes, you do not think they are going to have to
pass that down to the small businesses and increase their costs for
those small businesses that do work with them or that do business
with them in addition to taxes and not having a loss deduction
which we are making permanent here and some other things? They
are already dealing with inflation. They are already dealing with
high cost of products going up, supply chain issues. Now, their
business partners, whether they deal with energy or transportation
issues, those costs are going to go up with these additional taxes.
Are they not concerned about that? Or have they not shared their
concerns with you about that?
Ms. GUZMAN. I have not heard those concerns and I know that
there are even large corporations that will be affected that believe
that this could still, nonetheless, be a strong positive impact on our
economy because they know that it will strengthen the people. It
will strengthen the workforce. It will strengthen care economy and
healthcare economy as well. So I know that that 15 percent cor-
porate minimum tax is, again, only affecting less than 200 corpora-
tions and those are not small businesses and they will not be im-
pacted.
Mr. GARBARINO. Okay. You talk about the workforce and
strengthening the workforce. In your meetings with all the small
businesses, I am sure you have heard about how they cannot hire
people, they cannot get the proper workforce to do the jobs. Has
anybody brought up to you their concerns about the new OSHA
ruling? And I know you do not oversee OSHA with the vaccine
mandates, but you deal with small businesses. You said yourself
you meet with them daily, or weekly, or whenever. They have to
be concerned about what this is going to do to small businesses and
the fact that they already cannot staff, they are already having
trouble staffing their businesses, this additional vaccine require-
ment of OSHA, what are you hearing and what are you sharing
with the president about maybe this is not the best idea right now?
Ms. GUZMAN. Well, I mean, first to consider is that 98 percent
of the businesses would not be affected because of that 100 em-
ployee rule. So your mom and pops, your main street businesses,
you know, those businesses also, and for the most part small busi-
nesses support vaccine mandates. They support facemasks. They
want to keep their employees safe. They want to also attract cus-
tomers who want safe environments. And so I think that from the
majority of what we have heard is that small businesses support
this. They know that we need to fight the pandemic and that this
is the way to do that.
Mr. GARBARINO. I think we are talking to different small busi-
nesses but I will yield back because I am out of time.
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back.
Now, we recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Evans,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for this op-
portunity to talk to the administrator.
The question I would like to ask earlier this month, the Com-
mittee held a hearing on entrepreneurship, and we learned that
the applications to start new businesses increased significantly in
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2020, more than any other year over the past 50 years. As someone
who is on the ground talking with new businesses every day, what
happened during the pandemic that led to so many people starting
a new business?
Ms. GUZMAN. I believe it was a mixture of both opportunity en-
trepreneurship, as well as necessity entrepreneurship. For those
who were either part of that, either decided to go on a different
course and wanted to find a different opportunity as so many peo-
ple left their professions. And so amongst this group though, we
are still seeing high trends across women and people of color start-
ing businesses at really high rates and it is across the country.
Mr. EVANS. How can SBA and Build Back Better programs help
those budding entrepreneurs survive and thrive in a post-pandemic
economy?
Ms. GUZMAN. Access to capital is always one of the top issues
that small businesses share and is a challenge for them. Obviously,
they are trying to expand and grow and enter new markets and so
they need not only the capital but also the technical assistance and
SBA is uniquely positioned to support these small businesses as
they start up and launch their firms with capital and as well as
technical assistance. Better connecting, especially through the
Community Navigator pilot program small businesses to resources
that exist strengthening local ecosystems so small businesses can
be supported. So the SBA is working hard to make sure that we
are building those relationships extensively across the country to
support especially underserved businesses who have not been able
to necessarily connect in the same way, and we are trying to ex-
pand our product pool as well so that we can fill some of the mar-
ket gaps that we see out there especially in small dollar loans or
in investment capital as we see these businesses and know that
they are going to need support to create the jobs that they do. They
create 2/3 of net new jobs and 40 percent of our output and we
need to continue to support them with that charge.
Mr. EVANS. I would like to also thank you for the visit that you
did to Philadelphia and talking down 52nd Street was a very im-
portant part. A lot of things have happened in that neighborhood
just recently, along with an organization called Phila TEC entre-
preneur Della Clark, along with Wells Fargo Bank that like re-
building the businesses on the corridor. And certainly, your pres-
ence was very important just to show people, to give a sense of
hope and optimism. So again, I thank you for your leadership of
coming down and walking down the street. So I want to personally
say on record thank you.
And I yield back, Madam Chairperson.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from California, Mrs. Young
Kim, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Innovation, Entre-
preneurship, and Workforce Development.
Mrs. YOUNG KIM. Thank you, Chairwoman Velázquez, and
Ranking Member Luetkemeyer, and Vice Ranking Member Wil-
liams. Thank you very much for holding this hearing. I would like
to thank Administrator Guzman for joining us today.
Yesterday, California gas prices hit yet another record with $4.70
per gallon. This is the highest in the country. To further compound
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the higher prices facing Californians in my district, our country is
confronting a deep labor shortage and a supply chain crisis dis-
rupting small businesses’ inventories and pushing prices even high-
er.
Administrator Guzman, with your main function as the most im-
portant small business advocate in the Biden administration, how
often are you in direct communication with President Biden to
counsel him and with the White House staff regarding some of the
challenges small businesses are facing with labor shortages and an
inflation rate not seen in 31 years? And does your office perform
economic analyses of how different policies impact small busi-
nesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. We are coordinating with the White House on a
daily basis across various taskforces and communicating to the Na-
tional Economic Council and the Domestic Policy Council regularly
in terms of the programs that we see that could help on our supply
chain or on workforce issues. So that——
Mrs. YOUNG KIM. When you say regularly, how often is that—
weekly, daily?
Ms. GUZMAN. Daily. Daily we have been communicating with
the White House, various components because there are so many,
of course, important issues and taskforces that we are trying to——
Mrs. YOUNG KIM. What about the economic analysis?
Ms. GUZMAN. The Office of Advocacy within the SBA conducts
economic analysis and research on a regular basis. And we rely on
them for those insights. And so they regularly publish with notices
the intended economic research so that different institutions can
fulfill that and they publish those results.
Mrs. YOUNG KIM. Well, thank you.
President Biden’s supply chain announcement mentioned his
commitments from large companies like UPS, FedEx, Walmart,
and Target to use expanded hours to move those goods. As you
know, small businesses lack the pricing flexibility and purchasing
power to compete with the big businesses. And so from the small
trucking companies, supply houses, small business operations and
storefronts, small businesses continue to be harmed and left out in
times of supply chain shortages. So what solutions are you offering
small businesses during these disruptions? And how are we using
the entrepreneurship programs to help small businesses navigate
through the supply chain crisis?
Ms. GUZMAN. On the capital front that is really key for busi-
nesses to navigate disruption. As an example, a Texas manufac-
turer that was able to secure our loan to acquire a manufacturer
because the part that they were getting from abroad was taking too
long. And so they built that and had actually 30 percent savings
and that was as a result of an SBA loan. Another aerospace ex-
porter in the Northeast was able to use one of our loans recently
to be able to drive down that price because they were able to, with
our export financing, prepay for goods and so that enabled them to
get the goods faster. So capital is really important, as well as en-
trepreneur development. And SCORE chapters, SBDCs, WBCs
have been increasing their support around vendor relationships
and financial management and supply chain.
Mrs. YOUNG KIM. Thank you.
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I want to turn my attention to another matter. Last month, this
Committee passed reconciliation instructions that included $2 bil-
lion funded over the next 10 years to allow SBA to offer direct lend-
ing options. Can you talk to the Committee about the intent of the
program? And my question is more, why are we moving away from
a public-private lending partnership that we know is more efficient
in preventing fraud than direct lending programs like EIDL?
Ms. GUZMAN. SBA would not move away from its current pro-
grams. The 7(a) and 504 portfolios are strong programs and we will
continue to work with our direct lenders. Where we see gaps is on
small dollar loans. Note that less than 50 percent—I think it is 43
percent of businesses have been able to access a bank loan when
seeking capital. You see people going more and more to online
fintech lenders for financing. There are gaps in this marketplace of
small dollar loans and the direct lending program focuses on ad-
dressing those gaps. Even within our lending programs, although
we had a record year of $44 billion, we only did 18,000 loans under
$150,000. Our own SBA loans are in decline and there are less
lenders willing to do those loans.
Mrs. YOUNG KIM. Well, thank you, but when SBA lowers inter-
est rates, it is unfair competition if the government is offering
lower interest rates and is putting smaller local lending institu-
tions out of business. So I would urge you to analyze the direct
lending provisions and its impact on smaller businesses before con-
sidering its implementation.
And thank you for joining us today.
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you. Thank you.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Van Duyne,
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investiga-
tions, and Regulations.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much for your time.
It seems like you have been all around the country with my
Democrat colleagues. You have visited their areas. You have talked
to their small businesses. You have taken their questions and you
have answered them. I appreciate that for those folks. But I am
going to take you up on your officer. I have offered this before nu-
merous times. Come to my district. Come talk to the businesses
that I am talking to. Listen to what their concerns are. Because
from your testimony here today and your testimony in the past, I
have no idea who it is that you are talking to because it is not
what I am hearing.
On Friday, I had over 30 small businesses come at a roundtable
and tell me about what they are experiencing right now. Their
number one complaint was the blockades that the federal govern-
ment continues to put in their way as they are trying to open back
up. You said that you saw that most small businesses are sup-
portive of the vaccine mandate. Are you aware that 90 percent of
small business employers are concerned that they are going to have
to actually lose workers? Workers are going to quit over the vaccine
mandate? Are you aware of that?
Ms. GUZMAN. Well, 98 percent of those businesses would not
even be affected by the mandate, so——
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Ms. VAN DUYNE. Ninety percent of small businesses are con-
cerned that they are going to lose employees because of this vaccine
mandate. Forty-nine percent of small business employers have job
openings that they cannot fill. We have lost 5 million people out
of the workforce in the last several months. Five million. We are
at what, 61 percent now. Have you done any kind of impact about
what this vaccine mandate is going to mean to small businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. And I appreciate the invitation to come to your
district. And yes, my understanding is that 98 percent of all
the——
Ms. VAN DUYNE. No, no, I am asking has the SBA done any
kind of a fiscal impact report on what the vaccine mandate will
mean to small businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. Our Office of Advocacy has not yet done that
analysis.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Okay. So we are already starting about put-
ting this in and we have not even given any advice. We have no
idea what the financial impacts are going to be.
Supply chain. Ninety percent of small businesses are impacted by
supply chain shortages right now. What we are looking at is an ad-
ministration who is supporting killing our energy industry and in-
creasing those costs, a vaccine mandate that is actually going to get
truckers and folks who are delivering packages and logistics even
later. I mean, those are businesses that have been dying for work-
ers. Cannot find them now and we are going to fire them. Have you
done any fiscal impact statements on what the supply chain effects
are going to be on small businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. SBA, specifically, no. But of course, the Biden-
Harris administration has economists——
Ms. VAN DUYNE. I have not seen them. Have you seen them?
Because we wrote to your office and we asked. And we have not
gotten a response back.
Ms. GUZMAN. Well, economists have weighed in that, in fact,
the bipartisan infrastructure deal is going to make huge impacts
in terms of improving our supply chain.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Huge. Do we have any numbers?
Ms. GUZMAN. Well, I mean, that still does not apply to the im-
mediate needs that I know small businesses are strained with. And
so I think it speaks back to what the SBA can do around capital
access——
Ms. VAN DUYNE. It would be great if we knew this. If we actu-
ally knew the numbers.
So the newest spending spree is going to be about $400 billion
in taxes on small businesses. That is going to result when you look
at all the increases of a top federal tax rate increase of approxi-
mately 50 percent. Fifty percent. Are you aware that small busi-
nesses actually purchase regular gas and that has gone up 50 per-
cent in costs?
Ms. GUZMAN. I am aware. I am——
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Trucks rentals are up almost 40 percent. En-
ergy costs are up almost 30 percent. We have seen the highest in-
flation level in over 30 years. Inflation is taxation. And yet, from
the SBA, we still cannot get any reports on what those impacts are
going to be to small businesses.
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Ms. GUZMAN. We know that pandemic-induced inflation is af-
fecting our small businesses. And economists largely agree that
this is something that will go away in the coming months and we
continue to try to implement——
Ms. VAN DUYNE. And I hear that and I appreciate that. The
last time you were here I asked you a number of questions about
what the financial impacts were going to be on small businesses
and you told me that you would get back with me. You have not.
What you told me over and over again, and we have heard from
other people from this administration, is that none of these effects
are supposed to be on anybody over than $400,000 or large busi-
nesses. The fact that the SBA has not even looked into the fiscal
impacts shows how completely out of touch you are with the needs
of the small businesses and the impacts, the consequences that are
going to happen with these fiscal policies that continue to go down.
And I have to ask, if you cannot give me those answers, who is ad-
vising this administration on what costs their policies are having
on small businesses?
Ms. GUZMAN. The analysis, I continue to share information
about our small businesses and the impacts that——
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Information is great, but fiscal impacts are
important. And if you, as the administrator of the SBA, do not
have the answers to these immensely significant questions, who in
the administration does? Who is advising the president of the fi-
nancial impacts of these fiscal policies? Who is advocating for the
31 million small businesses across the country? These are basic
questions. Trillions of dollars are being spent and they are being
shoved down the throats of small businesses and we cannot even
tell you what the impacts are going to be.
Ms. GUZMAN. The Department of Treasury has analyzed. And
again, the largest corporations, those less than 200, will be im-
pacted.
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Fifty percent. Fifty percent.
I yield my time. Thank you.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The time has expired.
Now we recognize the gentlelady from Minnesota, Ms. Craig, for
5 minutes.
Ms. CRAIG. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman. It is a
real honor to be back here in the Committee room and thank you,
Administrator Guzman, for your testimony today, and for your
dedicated service to America’s small business owners.
You and I had a chance to visit together with Representative
Phillips in Minnesota this summer, and we were able to get to-
gether several small business owners from across our districts to
hear about the struggles that they have continued to face. I would
just pause to make sure that my colleagues across the aisle under-
stand that 98 percent of small businesses are fewer than 100 em-
ployees. Ninety-eight percent. So I appreciate your tolerance of
some of the past testimony here today.
Look, we have worked tirelessly to keep small businesses open
and frankly, on a bipartisan basis over the last couple of years. I
am very grateful to see that we have had such strong take up of
the Shuttered Venues Operator grant program. I know we talked
a lot about that when you were in Minnesota. That program, quite
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frankly, had a bit of a rough start and I was glad to see the admin-
istration worked to tirelessly to get that on a better path. That pro-
gram has been an absolute lifeline for many, many of our small
businesses. But there is a clear need to do more, and I want to
make sure that this Committee understands that COVID is not
over. The way we get to COVID being over is COVID is still here.
Minnesota has some of the highest positivity rates in the country
right now. In fact, yesterday, I think we were the highest. And our
businesses are just going to extraordinary lengths to keep my con-
stituent safe on a day-to-day basis.
But I am hearing from business owners and local leaders in the
district about those businesses that have been left out of the recov-
ery. It is not any fault of their own but it is really important that
the Small Business Committee not choose winners and losers. So
I really do hope, Madam Chair, that this Committee can come to-
gether in a bipartisan manner again just like we did under the pre-
vious administration, to make sure that we do not lose any more
of our small businesses that make up really the fabric of our local
communities.
And I will pause here to say 98 percent of small businesses are
less than 100 employees. Just yesterday, I sent a letter to House
leadership urging support for a small business relief package to
come together for businesses that have been left out of our previous
efforts and to replenish other programs like the Restaurant Revi-
talization Fund. There were some of us on this dais today who said
that the amount of money in the American Rescue Plan was never
going to be sufficient for the demand and the cost.
So Administrator, if you have been touring the country, I am
sure you have heard from businesses that are saying the same
thing as you heard in Minnesota’s 2nd District. Do you see need
for further action from Congress to ensure businesses are not left
out of these programs, especially as the holiday season comes into
full swing?
Ms. GUZMAN. We would welcome the opportunity to continue to
work with you and your district to make sure that the COVID
EIDL program in particular and those grants that are available for
small businesses get into the hands of those who have not been
able to benefit from recovery and we are making great efforts to
try to increase our outreach on those programs in particular. We
know that there was unmet demand with the Restaurant Revital-
ization Fund. It looks like Shuttered Venues will have enough
funding for not only the initial grants but also the supplemental,
but we know that these high-impact industries are still being im-
pacted and we would happily administer any program that Con-
gress would see fit to pass.
Ms. CRAIG. Let me just make sure I make the point that the
support we gave to the economy, to small businesses on a bipar-
tisan basis, as well as Americans under the CARES Act, the pre-
vious administration, as well as the American Rescue Plan, that is
one of the reasons why we are seeing such a strong recovery of de-
mand. People are out trying to spend their money. And, of course,
we have seen a once in a lifetime global pandemic which has dis-
rupted our supply chains. Can you say a little bit more about what
the administration is doing to help with those supply chain disrup-
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tions, the increased gas prices, more expensive shipping and over-
head costs like rent and utility increases? We have to be honest
with ourselves in that we have a challenge here. We have got a lot
of demand and we do not have the supply to meet it right now.
Ms. GUZMAN. We have definitely had global pandemic shifts in
our supply chain that have affected our small businesses and their
ability to get inventory. And as well, of course, influencing inflation
and the demand, the prices, rather. So for our small businesses, ob-
viously, they fit within the overall administration’s priorities of try-
ing to improve the supply chain, the investments in the bipartisan
infrastructure deal that will be made over the year will go a long
way to improving, of course, some of those bottlenecks, our ports
and our roads and our bridges. And so we are looking forward to
those key investments. On an immediate basis, of course, the ad-
ministration took immediate action to try to solve some of those
bottlenecks as well.
Ms. CRAIG. Sadly, my time is expired so I will yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back.
Now we recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Donalds, for
5 minutes.
Mr. DONALDS. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ranking
Member Luetkemeyer, and the Committee for this important hear-
ing.
Real quick a couple things. It has kind of been debated amongst
the Members about how 98 percent of the 31 million small busi-
nesses in our country are less than 100 employees. Obviously, that
is true. But also, the other truth is that with the OSHA mandate,
which is unconstitutional, by the way, this OSHA vaccine mandate
being pushed by the administration would start at 100 employees.
The administration has already signaled that they want to push it
to all small businesses, not just stopping at those with 100. So let’s
be very clear for the record what the intention of Joe Biden and
his presidency is. I actually want to thank the 5th Circuit and any
other courts that have struck down that mandate because it is un-
constitutional. Congress never gave OSHA any authority whatso-
ever to tell employers what they must require employees to inject
into their body. We have such a thing called HIPAA in the United
States. It is surprising to me that we have forgotten our HIPAA
laws considering the fact that we are largely dealing with COVID-
19 in the best possible ways.
Secondarily, I think it is also important to note that any presi-
dent that has the authority to make you take an injection is frank-
ly a totalitarian president and that flies in the face of our constitu-
tion the way it was written, the way it was drafted, the way it was
conceived. Even the very framework of our nation. So it is unconsti-
tutional. That thing is going to go away. Hopefully, the courts con-
tinue to do that and the Supreme Court follows suit in short order.
Real quick, Administrator Guzman, thanks so much for coming.
I do appreciate you being here. You mentioned earlier you believe
inflation is pandemic induced. Do you hold the view that it is pure-
ly pandemic induced? Can you explain that?
Ms. GUZMAN. I am relying on our economists who are sharing
with us and most agree that the pandemic is causing these supply
chain disruptions globally.
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Mr. DONALDS. Do you think it is that the pandemic is causing
it or do you believe that it is now work-related issues associated
with massive social spending and also in conjunction with environ-
mental policy in the State of California which has made it harder
for truckers to access the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles?
Ms. GUZMAN. The pandemic is underlying all of the inflation.
Yes.
Mr. DONALDS. Is there any reason why the social spending that
frankly this Congress and this president started back in February,
if we did not actually continue that social spending, do you think
that we would have employees basically sitting at home or taking
less hours?
Ms. GUZMAN. What I am hearing from small businesses and I
am not sure what you are hearing in your district, but their work-
ers are staying out because of care issues, because of healthcare
concerns. Because there also was——
Mr. DONALDS. So quick question. When a local 7-Eleven down
the street from my house has in the window that they want to give
somebody a $500 signing bonus to come to work, that is because
they are concerned about care issues or is it because they are con-
cerned about money? Or is it that there is now a bargaining chip
from the federal government that gives them more money than ac-
tually going in and taking more hours at work? Which one is it?
Ms. GUZMAN. What I was about to say as well is the final thing
is, you know, what I heard recently when I was convening a group
of resource partners at the Institute for Veterans and Military
Families that there is this great resignation as well and people are
shifting careers. So these are the more dominant factors that are
affecting our workforce. And yes, they are in control in terms of the
opportunity that they have to demand higher wages.
Mr. DONALDS. Let me ask you this question because I know
you said earlier you support obviously the budget reconciliation
package, Build Back Better, Build Back Broke. You know, every-
body likes their little acronyms. Come on. This thing is building us
back broke. You can acknowledge that. But I digress.
Do you think that the social spending aspects of that bill will
make it easier or harder for small business owners to find employ-
ees?
Ms. GUZMAN. I think actually it will make it easier. And there
are key investments within the Build Back Better framework that
involve workforce development, apprenticeships, as well as——
Mr. DONALDS. I almost gave you a title increase.
Administrator, can we honestly have a conversation and sit here
that if you do something like Child Tax Credit which will give peo-
ple $300 per child that that is going to make it easier for them to
go back to work or is it going to make an economic decision where
they are going to make the choice of, you know what, maybe I do
not need the additional 5 hours. If you cascade that through an
economy across the 31 million small businesses in the United
States, do you think it is going to be easier or harder for small
businesses to staff their companies in order to be effective for their
customers?
Ms. GUZMAN. As President Biden says——
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Mr. DONALDS. Well, we all know President Biden does not
know much about the economy. We know this.
Ms. GUZMAN.—against the American people and workers who
want to work, who want to have the protections in place and the
care for their elders or for their children that is affordable——
Mr. DONALDS. Administrator Guzman, the President of the
United States has never worked a day in his life outside of Wash-
ington, D.C. You have done more than he has. Come on now. You
were a small business owner. If the federal government was pro-
viding outside spending that competed directly with your ability to
pay people to come to work, do you think it would make it harder
for you as a small business owner which you were, not an adminis-
trator now in the administration, would it make it easier or harder
for you to keep people under your employ?
Ms. GUZMAN. Again, these investments in Build Back Better
will strengthen——
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. If you will excuse me.
Ms. GUZMAN. Apologies.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Decorum is important in this Com-
mittee and respecting——
Mr. DONALDS. Madam Chair, I was just referring to the presi-
dent——
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Respecting the President of the
United States is part of that.
Mr. DONALDS. Madam Chair, the President of the United
States has never worked in our economy. Those are facts. That is
not about decorum. That is the truth of the matter. He has never
worked a day in our economy. He has always worked in Wash-
ington, D.C. So to point out that fact, and to illustrate the fact that
we are talking about major economic policies that do impact the 31
million small business owners in our country is not about decorum.
I did not trash the man. I am just speaking facts.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Your time has expired.
Mr. DONALDS. I yield.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Now we recognize the gentlelady
from Florida, Ms. Salazar.
Ms. SALAZAR. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Velázquez and
Ranking Member Luetkemeyer, for holding this necessary hearing.
And I also want to thank you, Administrator Isabella Guzman, for
being present and willing to answer our questions. Because unfor-
tunately, Madam, your people, the SBA office in my district just do
not answer the phones. And I have consulted with other congres-
sional offices and the same thing. A small business owner is des-
perate looking for a loan and he just cannot get through.
Let me just give you an example. His name is Marquis
McLemore. He lives in South Miami and he finally reached a
human being, not a machine. The SBA lady who answered the
phone was unaccountable and unable to answer basic questions.
And I know the situation very well, Madam Guzman, because in
my district office I created a division called the Prosperity Center
to help my people achieve the American Dream, and for us immi-
grants it is to have their own business. And you know the SBA is
instrumental for that Prosperity Center.
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There are other scenarios. When an individual who has been able
to start the process, thank God, but gets stuck in the middle of it
because every time they call there is a new person to talk to, they
have to re-explain their problems, they have to reupload the docu-
ments. You know, Madam, SBS is not a MasterCard or a Visa to
be bouncing people around. People have a choice to get another
credit card but in this case there is no other SBA for small busi-
ness. And your agency can make it or break it for millions and mil-
lions of small businesses in America.
Let me tell you so bad that my congressional office and my Pros-
perity Center has a hard time getting information from your agen-
cy. So just imagine if a congressional office cannot get through,
what about Rosa Lopez from Little Havana or John Rogers from
Cutler Bay?
Madam Guzman, I understand that you are responsible for this
and I also understand that this is uncomfortable, very uncomfort-
able for you for what I am describing but it is more painful to lose
your business because of a bureaucrat. And I am sure you agree
with me. These are real people and these are real life-changing
problems.
Let me just give you one more piece of information and then
maybe you can answer me. There are 2 million small business own-
ers in South Florida. Two million. There is one office. One office
that serves 2 million people. During the pandemic, as you have
said, the SBA received 3 billion to hire more people and provide a
better service.
Now, let me ask you something. How many people have you
hired in the last 10 months? How many of those in South Florida?
How many new call centers and how many of them are bilingual?
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you for that. We do value customer service
experience and that has been a priority of mine since I came in
which was what instigated our overhaul. And I think you are ref-
erencing mostly to the COVID EIDL program where it has been
very challenging to get answers. So we have——
Ms. SALAZAR. So you know that we have a problem with cus-
tomer service?
Ms. GUZMAN. We completely agree with you and we are trying
to fix it. And what we have done so far is we have three times the
amount of customer service resources that we have available. We
have switched vendors as well and we have, of course, bilingual ca-
pacity is available within this network. We have also tried to in-
crease in the field and so we will take back your concerns about
the Florida District Office in particular.
Ms. SALAZAR. Thank you.
Ms. GUZMAN. We have also tried to increase the district connec-
tion to our platform. Previously, they did not have——
Ms. SALAZAR. I am going to get back to you in 30 days and I
am going to tell you if my Small Business Administration office in
South Florida is working according to what you are telling me.
Let me just give you one more concern. A month ago, and this
is even worse, a month ago the General Inspector, or Inspector
General I should say, the Inspector General found that women and
minorities, you and me, women and minorities are not getting their
fair share of receiving small business government contracts. For me
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that is lethal because I promised this to my constituents through
my Prosperity Center and I have to deliver, Madam. And the SBA
has to help me because it is instrumental. My question is how are
you going to fix this, that we do get the fair share of what we need?
Women and minorities.
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you for the question. Yes, government con-
tracting is a priority and equity across our programs. We want to
make sure all of our small businesses access the federal govern-
ment. And right now we have seen over the past 10 years a decline
of 40 percent.
Ms. SALAZAR. Those are stats. What are you going to do in
order to right now under your administration being able to, for
women and minorities, to get more government contracts?
Ms. GUZMAN. So we have a multi-prong approach. The first is
working collaboratively with the White House and OMB on the
policies like category management and other policies to make sure
that businesses can access all contracts across the federal govern-
ment. We have increased the budget for the president’s request for
an increase on the government contracting business development
teams resources so that we can increase outreach and get more——
Ms. SALAZAR. Can you give me in 30 days a report of what
have you done in South Florida in order to improve the access for
these women and minorities?
Ms. GUZMAN. We would be happy to sit down with you and
your team to go over specific initiatives that we can implement.
Ms. SALAZAR. To help my constituents. Thank you, Madam.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Time has expired.
Now we recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you,
Administrator Guzman.
Back in I think it was February-March timeframe, we started to
get some numbers back on just exactly what did the PPP loan pro-
gram look like and hindsight is 20/20. I think you would find agree-
ment that there was a lot of successes and may have saved main
street.
Also, obviously, at the same time we were getting the reports
that the direct loans made by the SBA were not only a high per-
centage that resulted in fraud and that money that was being dis-
tributed after individuals—crooks—I do not know how else to ex-
plain this—had gotten into the portal and obviously, you know, put
in bogus facts and figures and got a check in the mail. We then
had discussions with the IG and with others in law enforcement
saying that they were working on claw backs and that SBA was
working on claw backs and that also there had been some individ-
uals ultimately who had been charged for fraudulent activities.
So like I said, hindsight is 20/20. We learned our lesson. We kind
of know, we have always known, that direct loan programs by the
federal government result in a high percentage of fraudulent
claims. So as we move forward and after this Committee was in-
volved in, and this was referred to by some of the other Members
here today, when the SBA got the $2 billion in loans directly to the
borrower, you said earlier that financial institutions do not nec-
essarily want to get involved with loans of 150 or less, but I am
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not finding that that is the case. Just a couple of weeks ago, Wis-
consin Bankers Association, I think the credit unions are saying,
whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out. Why would we not be involved in
this, especially because the due diligence was done by those finan-
cial institutions and we now know that that makes for a much
more legitimate process. And it seems like you are abandoning that
and it does not make much sense to me right now.
Ms. GUZMAN. Thank you so much for that. Well, one of the first
things, just to mention on COVID EIDL and the fraud that the IG
had outlined, that was all affecting, that was all reviewing 2020
loans. And so controls have been restored thanks to the Economic
Aid Act. The SBA was given again the right to collect tax docu-
ments, which we have. And so we have $67 billion in disaster port-
folio over the years of SBA that does not have high incidence of
fraud. So our direct lending programs across EIDL programs broad-
ly do not suffer from that same effect and that is specifically to
deal with COVID EIDL and the restrictions that were placed on
the Agency at the time and the administration’s choices.
Mr. FITZGERALD. So do you believe that, in fact, there were
vulnerabilities that now have been addressed and if we get to-
gether a year from now that you will be able to say that stuff was
fixed and that is not going to be the case again?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes. And we have been working with the IG
closely to make sure that we are implementing all the rec-
ommendations. So not just the tax document collection but other
identity verifications across the COVID EIDL program. And we are
making great progress.
Within the direct loan proposal specifically, some banks are still
doing those loans. I said 18,000 within the SBA’s portfolio last
year. We just continue to see large gaps. Of course, we have 32.5
million small businesses and especially as we have seen the foot-
print of so many banks shrink across the country where there are
actual banking deserts, half of them in rural communities, we need
to make sure that there are alternatives and that all our small
businesses can connect to capital. And so we believe that SBA has
a role to play to work with the lending partners similar to how we
did with PPP, and with a fee-based program, distribute these loans
through our lenders as well as directly.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Let me shift gears real quick for a final ques-
tion.
There has been a lot of discussion about the vaccines and the
100-person mandate. What is the magic behind 100 employees? I
have not been able to figure this out. I have been lectured. Every-
one in America has been lectured about follow the science, follow
the science. What is the 100-person threshold? And if we have an
employer that has got 105 employees and another one that has got
95 and they are side by side, some of them would be subject to
fines and others would not. I mean, what is the logic behind that?
Ms. GUZMAN. Of course, with the proposed rule there will be
comments and so we will find out more about how people feel about
that analysis but my understanding was that it was done based on
where they thought a company of that size would have the capacity
to be able to administer a program like that and be able to comply.
That is my understanding.
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Mr. FITZGERALD. So it has nothing to do with health or COVID
itself or science?
Ms. GUZMAN. As well as that. Yes, correct. You are correct, sir,
that there is, of course, you know, in larger.
Mr. FITZGERALD. I do not get it. I do not understand why 100
is the magic number.
Ms. GUZMAN. In larger facilities there have been, you know, of
course there are more concerns of COVID outbreaks and so being
able to control for vaccines and that matter would be helpful.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Okay. I yield back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Time has expired.
Now I will be asking questions. I will recognize myself for 5 min-
utes.
Ms. Guzman, the Department of Defense administered 17 dif-
ferent vaccines and children are required to get vaccines prior to
enroll in school. I just cannot see what the issue is with the vaccine
mandate when we know that because of it we have been able to
control the spread of COVID-19. Also, when people use the argu-
ment that it is impacting small businesses more than any other
sector, 98 percent of small businesses are exempt from the 100 em-
ployee rule. There are other issues that were raised and I just want
to give you an opportunity to answer.
Administrator, since you have been in office as the head of the
SBA, have you refused to provide access to data or information re-
quested by the IG?
Ms. GUZMAN. We have a very transparent and collaborative re-
lationship with the IG and our teams meet regularly and we have
disclosed all information that they have requested.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. When people talk about fraud in the
EIDL program, that fraud was connected to the fact that the
guardrails and protections under the previous administration were
lowered. What steps have you taken to put those guardrails in
place?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes. The IG report was focused on 2020 where
the guardrails did not exist. We have implemented the collection of
tax documents across the portfolio as well as implemented addi-
tional identity measures to make sure that our overall fraud con-
trol framework is in place and that we are following suggestions of
the IG and the GAO.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Let’s talk about taxes and how in the
BBB Act it impacts small businesses. People this morning have
been referring to the tax provision under the Build Back Better Act
and how those provisions will be impacting small businesses. I
have here the Committee’s Ways and Means section by section of
the bill and I invite my colleagues to read it so that we can make
the statement or the questions related to small businesses. I want
to know how many small businesses will be impacted by the provi-
sion of the 15 percent corporate minimum tax to those businesses
that are making $1 billion a year in profits. How many small busi-
nesses? How many businesses are operating overseas because of
the global minimum tax for large multinational corporations, and
how many small businesses will be impacted by that provision?
How many businesses that have income over $25 million will be
impacted with the surcharge of the wealthiest .02 percent of busi-
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nesses? How many small businesses have a structure where they
do corporate stock buybacks? Nowhere in this bill can you find
where corporate or individual tax rates have been modified or will
be modified.
Let’s go to the print so that we can say and have an honest dis-
cussion as to how those provisions will be impacting small busi-
nesses. Then, the Medicare surcharge closes the loophole that al-
lows some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying the 3.8 Medicare tax
on their earning. Those are not pass-through. Let’s go to the source
because it seems to me that people are discussing a bill that does
not exist. Let’s go now to some of the programs under SBA and the
Build Back Better Act.
Administrator, you discussed how the data shows small dollar
loans have declined significantly as a share of the 7(a) portfolio
with loans of less than $150,000 down by almost 53 percent over
the past years. The average 7(a) loan has more than doubled over
a decade. Do you agree that a direct loan product will help fill this
gap in the 7(a) program? Are you confident that the agency will be
able to stand up and deliver this product in a timely manner?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes. We definitely have seen that gap in the mar-
ketplace and we believe the SBA is equipped, especially having
learned from the great lessons of PPP and EIDL and implemented
some incredible private sector best practices and expanded our net-
work. We do have the tools to implement this effectively.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. What steps will you take to cure po-
tential fraud in a direct loan program?
Ms. GUZMAN. As we have on our previous disaster loan pro-
grams a $67 billion portfolio where fraud was not an issue, we will
continue to follow those great standards as well as implementing
new technologies as fraud evolves to make sure that we are fight-
ing fraud on a regular basis and getting the funds into the hands
of those businesses it was intended for.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. The USDA Business and Industry
Loan program—and this is an important topic for me—so the
USDA Business and Industry Loan program does not require co-
ops to provide a personal guarantee but the SBA still does which
prevents them from getting 7(a) loans. Instead of requiring a per-
sonal guarantee, USDA requires co-op Members to sign a profit
nondistribution covenant. If this works for USDA issued work for
the SBA, why will the SBA not provide this option for co-ops?
Ms. GUZMAN. I know that, you know, thanks to your main
street Act we have been exploring the options to expand the use
of the 7(a) products across our ESOPs and our worker cooperatives
broadly. I am happy to explore this a little bit further. We have
made some changes within the program to open it up to ESOPs
and co-ops and we have committed to making sure that we can con-
tinue to see how those loans perform and make additional changes.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Will you commit to working with
this Committee to ensure co-ops can access 7(a) loans?
Ms. GUZMAN. Yes. I think it is a priority for us to make sure
that there are options for especially exiting businesses to have a
success plan that can work.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Data shows that Black and Hispanic
borrowers only received 3 and 6 percent of 7(a) dollars lent in 2021,
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respectively. CDFIs and MDIs are better able to reach small busi-
nesses owned by people of color. They are recording that PPP is the
latest example. How do you plan to bring more CDFIs and MDIs
into the 7(a) program?
Ms. GUZMAN. The Community Advantage pilot program that
would be made permanent within the Build Back Better will help
create certainty within a program that attracts our CFIs and en-
ables them to leverage our 7(a) portfolio. We would use that, as
well as other tools, to make sure that we are engaging with them
and continuing the relationships fortified during PPP.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you.
Every Member has had their 5 minutes. I just want to really
thank you. I am looking forward to working with you and the Com-
mittee in terms of how we can strengthen the programs we have
under SBA and the new programs that will be implemented. I real-
ly want to thank you and your staff for your service on behalf of
American small businesses. I also appreciate your willingness to
appear before and work with this Committee. Transparency, ac-
countability, and responsiveness are critical to a positive working
relationship between the agency and this Committee. When I say
‘‘this Committee,’’ I mean all of the Members of this Committee.
Everyone in the room today has the same goal—to help our main
street employers. I look forward to collaborating with you and all
of the Committee Members as we work to get small businesses to
full recovery. This is not a small task. We have laid out com-
plicated issues today that need addressing. Given the monumental
obstacles that SBA has overcome over the past 18 months, I am
confident that you can correct these problems and make these pro-
grams better serve entrepreneurs.
I ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days
to submit statements and supporting materials for the record.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Madam Chair?
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. You went over 2 minutes and 34 seconds
and now you have had a closing statement. I think I get time to
be able to rebut that.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. To rebut what?
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. To rebut your 2 minutes and 34 seconds
versus my 5. And now you have had a closing statement so I have
another closing statement.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. I always give a closing statement.
You never have.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. That was a lengthy closing. It is one thing
to do 30 seconds but that was about 2 minutes worth of closing
statement.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. I am the Chair of this Committee. I
run this Committee and I try to run this Committee in a bipartisan
way. I did it with Mr. Chabot. I have got to tell you, this has been
the most partisan Committee ever, and I resent that because I try
to be fair and balanced.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Well, Madam Chair——
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. I have always made a closing state-
ment. As Chair, I have——
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Mr. LUETKEMEYER. That is wonderful you made a closing
statement but I think if you are going to have a lengthy one—it
is one thing to say thank you to the witnesses and just a recap,
a small recap, but for——
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Reclaiming my time, sir, I have al-
ways given a closing statement. It does not have to be 2 minutes
long or 3 minutes long or 1 minute long. I just simply——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. If you have a closing statement of a sig-
nificant length, I have the option to be able to have a closing state-
ment as well.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. You are not the Chair.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. That is in the rules. That is not the
Chair’s prerogative. It is in the rules.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. You are not the Chair. So——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. So you are going to do it because you can.
Is that what you just said?
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Well, I am the Chair, sir. I am the
Chair. Mr. Chabot never gave——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. So next term, whenever I am the Chair,
you are going to sit here and we will just make sure you have 5
minutes and not go on for 20. Is that what you just said?
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. I gave you the right to run your mi-
nority Members. I give you access in terms of your budget. I am
the Chair. I give a closing statement and that has always been the
tradition of the Committee.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Madam Chair, with all due respect, there
are rules in place to allow each——
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. You want to give an opening? You
want to give a closing statement? Make a closing statement, sir.
You are recognized.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. Very good.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. You are recognized.
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you.
We could have been out of here 5 minutes ago if we would have
just recognized it right off the bat but here we are.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. You know——
Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Again, going through some of the last
comments by the Chairman, the vaccine mandate, I think Ms.
Guzman, you said 98 percent of small businesses are exempt. The
problem is only about 40 percent. About 35 to 40 percent of the
people are going to be exempt from that. There is about 60 to 65
percent according to what our information is that are going to be
affected by the vaccine mandate. So let’s be honest about your sta-
tistics here.
The Chairman talked about guardrails on things and I think that
is great. We need to have guardrails on what is going on, especially
in the EIDL program and some of the direct lending programs. The
program is the staff do not follow the guardrails. The IG report
says that this is happening so therefore, we need to make sure that
the staff does its job, which is to adhere to the new challenges, new
guardrails, new protocols that are in place. That is your job,
Madam Administrator.
One of the things that is frustrating to me is when you make
these wild statements about we are going to raise taxes on the
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48
wealthy, in this BBB there is a huge tax break for the wealthy. It
is called SALT. You cannot take on one side and give on the other
and get away with just saying part of what is going on and not ex-
plain what is going on on the other side of this argument. So it is
very frustrating to see that a lot of the information is not nec-
essarily given in a frank form for both sides to understand the
depth and problems that we have.
Again, I thank you for being here, Ms. Guzman. I think that you
have got a large job ahead of you. I think you found this morning
the concerns that we have on this side of the aisle with regards to
the inability to answer questions, the inability to provide studies
to show that you are actually doing your job and making sure that
the information you are giving us is actually done by a think tank
or a study of some sort, that you can verify and back up what you
are saying. This is very important. You talk about the COVID
thing and right here I have got something from the Job Creators
Network that says higher prices inflation by 40 percent versus 14
percent is the number one issue for small businesses. I hope that
you have information like that because that is what you need to
be able to make good decisions. So I am very concerned with the
direction that we are going. This Committee hearing has not al-
layed my fears and we are going to be watching very carefully and
providing what we are supposed to do, oversight.
Thank you for being here, and with that, Madam Chair, I yield
back.
Chairwoman VELÁZQUEZ. Yes. Let me remind the gentleman
that almost every economist in this country is saying, including
Senator Portman yesterday in his speech, that when it comes to in-
flation, no better to make investment in the infrastructure of this
country. You know what is the problem here? That for the last 40
years America has been expecting an infrastructure bill. People
and previous presidents make pronouncements of infrastructure
bills and this one delivered. The President of the United States de-
livered yesterday.
I ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days
to submit statements and supporting materials for the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
If there is no further business to come before the Committee, we
are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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APPENDIX
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Insert offset folio 139 here 46064.091
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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140
Insert offset folio 140 here 46064.092
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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141
Insert offset folio 141 here 46064.093
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00145 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
142
Insert offset folio 142 here 46064.094
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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143
Insert offset folio 143 here 46064.095
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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144
Insert offset folio 144 here 46064.096
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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145
Insert offset folio 145 here 46064.097
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00149 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
146
Insert offset folio 146 here 46064.098
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00150 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
147
Insert offset folio 147 here 46064.099
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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148
Insert offset folio 148 here 46064.100
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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149
Insert offset folio 149 here 46064.101
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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150
Insert offset folio 150 here 46064.102
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00154 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
151
Insert offset folio 151 here 46064.103
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00155 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
152
Insert offset folio 152 here 46064.104
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00156 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
153
Insert offset folio 153 here 46064.105
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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154
Insert offset folio 154 here 46064.106
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00158 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
155
Insert offset folio 155 here 46064.107
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00159 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
156
Insert offset folio 156 here 46064.108
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00160 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
157
Insert offset folio 157 here 46064.109
SBD026 with DISTILLER
VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:20 May 12, 2022 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00161 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 F:\DOCS\46064.TXT DEBBIE
158
Insert offset folio 158 here 46064.110
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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159
Æ
Insert offset folio 159 here 46064.111
SBD026 with DISTILLER
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File and source
- File
- CHRG-117hhrg46064.pdf
- Size
- 103,042,973 bytes
- SHA-256
- 13e579ea3043b6a662ab9719d23ab279cb796c4600eab6fb6c85d0b3bce2a27e
- Our copy
- CHRG-117hhrg46064.pdf
- Original
- www.govinfo.gov