‘Just not fair’: Governor laments federal PPP loans going to big businesses

In Friday press avails, Gov. Ron DeSantis lamented the fact that too many small businesses have been shut out of Paycheck Protection Program support.

His administration is exploring another round of bridge loans for businesses shut out, and he is urging bigger companies that didn’t need the money to return it to the federal government.

The federal program, intended to stabilize the finances of small businesses, has too often subsidized big businesses, the Governor says, including those that have not suffered from COVID-19 shutdowns.

“One of the things that we’re really concerned about going forward is small businesses. At the beginning of this, as the country was shutting down, we saw that there was going to be problems,” DeSantis said in West Palm Friday afternoon.

He had hoped the PPP program would work as advertised, but it has not.

“PPP came online, people were applying for it, ran out of money. Congress did more, I think it’s run out again,” DeSantis said.

“What we’ve seen is there have been some larger companies that have gotten millions and millions of dollars from that, but [the program has shut out] a lot of our smaller businesses who really if they just had $30, 40, 50,000 to meet payroll, some of these other things, that may be the difference between them going out of business or being able to bounce back,” the Governor said.

“We are actively looking to see who has not received any type of assistance. I’m seeing what we can do at the state level,” DeSantis said, for “smaller businesses.”

“My fear is if those don’t remain solvent then they just may not come back,” DeSantis said.

For “big companies [that] took millions and millions of this PPP money,” DeSantis suggested returning the funds, “and let the small businesses have it.”

“There are some businesses that took it who never even closed this whole time,” the Governor noted. “Obviously, the economy has taken a hit here … but it’s just not fair.”