Small Business Owner Touts Trump-Backed PPP Loan During Biden Visit

At an event designed to showcase President Joe Biden's small business agenda, a store owner credited the Republican-backed Paycheck Protection Program passed during the Trump administration for helping save his business.

Mike Siegel, the co-owner of a Washington, D.C., hardware store, told Biden during his Tuesday visit that the PPP allowed his business to pay at-risk employees while they stayed home from work during the coronavirus pandemic.

The first wave of PPP loans was sent out in April 2020 under President Donald Trump, not Biden, who criticized the PPP loans during the campaign.

While the goal of Biden's visit was to tout the exclusive two-week window he established for small businesses to apply for new aid, Siegel's business might not have survived to apply for the loan without the support it received last year.

Prior to becoming president, Biden minimized the PPP's ability to help small businesses, claiming that there are "Tens of thousands of them going out of business [b]ecause the money didn't get to small businesses."

House Small Business Committee ranking member Blaine Luetkemeyer told the Washington Free Beacon that Democrats were quick to criticize the business relief efforts during the campaign, but that its success is undeniable.

Despite Biden's belief that the PPP rarely aided small businesses, his campaign repeatedly featured PPP-aided companies from around the country.
 

https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/small-business-owner-touts-trump-backed-ppp-loan-during-biden-visit/