Republicans Cut American Small Business Funds for Foreign Corporations

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http://www.newsday.com/business/printedition/ny-bzsba093618622jan09,0,4906090.story?coll=ny-business-print

SBA Suspends Popular Start-Up Loan Program

By Carrie Mason-Draffen
STAFF WRITER

January 9, 2004


Small business experts are worried that entrepreneurs, especially women and minorities, will be left without funding after the largest government loan program aimed to help them was suspended.

The Small Business Administration suspended the popular 7(a) loan program on Tuesday, spokeswoman Sue Hensley said, because Congress hasn't signed off on the agency's fiscal 2004 budget and the SBA was afraid of running out of money in the face of surging demand. In December that fear prompted the SBA to slash the program's loan cap to $750,000 from $2 million.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez of Brooklyn, the ranking Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, blasted the shutdown in a statement. Citing small businesses as the "greatest job creator in this country," she said, "Not only will small business feel the negative impact of this decision but so will the U.S. economy."

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In other news, unemployment at record low in Communist China as Bush allows US Corporations to move teenage peasant girls out of school and into sweatshops.