Helene, Milton wreckage puts spotlight on disaster loan program

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Roll Call

Posted October 10, 2024 at 6:59pm


Tussling ratcheted up between the White House and GOP leaders on Thursday over when Congress needs to return to take up emergency disaster relief for victims of the twin hurricanes that have battered southern states in recent days, including twice-hit Florida. While there’s been substantial confusion and misinformation about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, there’s general agreement that FEMA has enough money to get past the elections after receiving $20 billion in the Dec. 20 stopgap law.

The Small Business Administration’s disaster loan account, however, is another matter. President Joe Biden has already called on Congress to come back into session early to refill the SBA’s coffers and reiterated that sentiment on Thursday. “I think in terms of the SBA it’s pretty right at the edge right now,” Biden said. “I think Congress should move as rapidly as they can, particularly on the most immediate need, which is small business.”

The SBA says it has just $50 million left in the account with which to make loans, while thousands of applications a day are coming in and the agency is still sifting through requests for aid related to Hurricane Beryl, which struck Texas in July. Thursday was the deadline for loans related to property losses due to Beryl; the agency announced a day earlier it had already approved more than $500 million for Beryl and other recent Texas disasters.

The SBA is “quickly exhausting current federal funding to make new offers for affordable recovery loans to homeowners, renters, small businesses, and nonprofits,” SBA Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman said in a statement. “Americans should not have to wait for critical assistance when they need it the most.”

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2024/10/10/helene-milton-wreckage-puts-spotlight-on-disaster-loan-program/

[Old Crank]

1. The do nothing GOP

will not show up to work for the people.
They will be out collecting cash for themselves.

[riversedge]

2. 3 weeks can be a life-time when people have no homes to come back because they

have been blown away or are now unlivable!! I think Congress needs to come back--like today and appropriate these loan funds!!


............Johnson has been clear that Congress will take action to add more money for FEMA and other agencies in the lame-duck session. But that hasn’t reassured a growing chorus of members on both sides of the aisle urging him to call the House back early.

That includes at least one House Republican — Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who represents Milton-battered Clearwater. Luna is the sole GOP cosponsor of a bill from Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., to provide FEMA with $10 billion plus $5 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and she wants Johnson to schedule a vote “immediately.”

Luna, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, voted against the stopgap law that contained $20 billion for FEMA. She voted for an earlier GOP-drafted version that would have provided $30 billion for the disaster fund, but that legislation extended to the end of March and contained proof-of-citizenship rules for voter registrations that Democrats opposed.