A new report from staff at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reveals that MILLIONS of Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) “loans” handing out BILLIONS as part of the 2020 federal “CARES” Act were flagged as potentially fraudulent by the Small Business Administration (SBA) but – SHOCKER! – the SBA never investigated them.
Writes POGO:
“The Small Business Administration (SBA) flagged nearly 2.3 million Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans worth at least $189 billion — about a quarter of the roughly $800 billion lent out — for further review between August 2020 and September 2021, according to a massive dataset obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. There are 4.3 million flags signifying concerns that loans were potentially fraudulent, the recipient was possibly ineligible, or the loans in question merited closer examination for some other reason. There is an average of 1.9 flags for each of the loans identified for scrutiny.”
So, a quarter of the Constitution-defying “loans” created by the government (using our and our kids' money), were cited as going to potential fraudsters, but never investigated by the SBA, which also is a Constitution-defying beast.
Does anyone else see the bleak irony of the anti-constitutional SBA citing portions of the anti-constitutional PPP as possibly being accepted by fraudsters?
In fact, isn’t this akin to a bunch of schoolyard bullies shaking down kids for lunch money, handing it to friends for purposes they claim are “good,” and being exposed for the fact that the recipients spent the money on other things?
We’ve known for a while about how the cash didn’t get directed towards “employees” as politicians claimed that it would. In fact, in July, I wrote for MRCTV that 75 percent of the $800 BILLION in PPP “loans” didn’t go to so-called “workers” (in economics, anyone who participates in any facet of an endeavor is a worker, but for years, politicians have synonymously and improperly used the term “worker” to mean the term “employee”).
MRCTV’s Clay Robinson wrote about a man who was accused of using $4 million in a PPP “loan” to acquire a Lamborghini sports car. In May of 2021, I wrote about an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report ringing the alarm bell on the PPP loans going to FAKE businesses, and how the SBA was not properly investigating the fraud. In July of 2020, MRCTV’s Nick Kangadis wrote about how 14 PPP loans went to restaurant and hotel interests partially owned by well-heeled celeb Robert DeNiro. And in August, I reported on how – as expected – the feds had begun “forgiving” many of the loans, especially those blessing well-connected people in endeavors like a corporation tied to Nancy Pelosi’s hubby, Paul, interests tied to Jared Kushner, and businesses tied to Khloe Kardashian and Jay Z.
Related: Feds Forgive Wealthy Celebs' Massive, Tax-Funded COVID PPP Loans | MRCTV
And, yep, the POGO team reports precisely what we expected:
“The SBA has forgiven 95% of all PPP loan dollars as of this month. That means a substantial number of loans flagged as potentially going to fraudsters or ineligible recipients have now been forgiven.”
And the federal bully class expectation to “forgive” many of the “loans” soon after they started handing out the cash in 2020. In other words, one reasonably can assume they never planned on seeing the recipients pay back at all. Forgiveness was “baked in” and part of the loan agenda in the first place. The matter of fraud? Well, that was a secondary and seemingly unworkable matter to handle:
“The agency first began retrospectively applying these flags in 2020 to help identify loans that should be more closely assessed before being forgiven. Indeed, the SBA dubbed the flags ‘hold codes,’ and the codes were supposed to be cleared before the agency forgave the loans. Yet previously unreported auditor findings state that the SBA failed to ensure that all flagged loans and forgiveness applications were properly reviewed, raising the possibility that the government wrongly waived the repayment of tens of billions of dollars in PPP loans.”
Again, who here is shocked? But a close look at the manner in which these people pushed away the fraud cases within the already fraudulent and anti-constitutional system is, well… enlightening:
“The data obtained by POGO appears to show mass close-outs of 2.7 million flags on two separate days near the end of the Trump administration. On a third day shortly before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the SBA cleared out 99.1% of ‘special review’ flags, almost entirely assigned to the very largest PPP loans above $2 million.”
Typical schoolyard bully behavior.
In our analogy, perhaps we can expect the playground bullies to claim they “lacked sufficient resources” to investigate the recipients of their own ill-gotten graft.
Wait. What’s this, from POGO?
“SBA Inspector General (Hannibal “Mike”) Ware recently told the New York Times that he has limited the number of cases each of his agents can work at any one time to avoid burnout.”
Shucks. That’s a real shame. He and his pals have no enumerated power to hold their positions in the SBA office of the Inspector General, let alone complain of “burnout.” And to think that these people in DC can say these kinds of self-serving statements even as Americans are working harder and harder just to keep up with skyrocketing prices brought on by Federal Reserve money-creation, profligate federal borrowing, and spending, not only on absurd graft like the PPP and “CARES” Act but also on the SBA and Mr. Ware – that’s a rich dish, indeed.
The Trump-heralded $2 TRILLION “CARES” Act and its $800 BILLION in PPP loans were pushed as ways to “help” soften the blows of the so-called “pandemic.” But it was government lockdown policy – most of which breached the US Constitution’s Contract Clause -- that primarily was at fault for economic strife.
It is important to remember every nuance of this, and recall that, if these politicians conformed to the rules of the US Constitution, none of it would have been the economic plague on us that it is
Related: Luxury Restaurant & Hotel Chain Co-Owned by Robert De Niro Received 'at Least 14' PPP Loans | MRCTV