Kerry Urges Immediate Assistance for Faster Response to Small Businesses i

[Mass]

Definitively very busy these days

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=54077

To: National Desk

Contact: Marc Comer of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 202-224-8496

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is pushing the administration to act quickly to help small business owners impacted by Hurricane Katrina. In the four weeks since the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has approved only four loans for small businesses -- none of which are in Louisiana.

"First FEMA was asleep at the switch and now the SBA is telling businesses to wait. The Administration has to give the SBA more resources -- and must coordinate agencies -- so that small businesses and the Gulf Coast economy can get back to work now," said Kerry, lead Democrat on the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

...

In a letter sent yesterday by Kerry -- along with Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) -- to Mark Everson, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the bipartisan group of Senators asked the agency to work with Small Business Development Center counselors in the Gulf Coast that are helping small business-owners apply for disaster assistance.

The letter asks the IRS to send an employee to each of the Small Business Development Centers that "have made it a priority to help small businesses impacted by Katrina fill out the appropriate forms so that they can obtain financial assistance as quickly as possible."

[ginnyinWI]

1. aha

That's why he was talking to Sen. Snowe the other day in the Senate.