Political Quotes

“Seacoast is a small bank. It only has $130 million in assets. According to this banker's testimony to me yesterday, he is going to take this bill and all of its provisions, and he believes he can leverage $180 million in SBA loans to small businesses. Based on their record and based on the average SBA loan size of $650,000, this one bank in southern California believes it can make 275 business loans. If this one small bank in South Carolina can take this bill and its provisions and leverage it to 275 good-quality loans in South Carolina, there is hope on the way. This is a real step to putting this recession behind us. I thank the Democratic leadership for making it a possibility. I hope next time a bill like this is brought to the floor of the Senate, it will not take so long; we will not have to jump over the barriers and barricades that were put in front of this bill. So I hope Members on the other side of the aisle will lower those barriers next time because our small businesses cannot wait. Tier 1 Capital Madam President, as one of the two lead sponsors of the Small Business Lending Fund, I am deeply convinced of the ability of this program to provide small businesses with the credit they need to grow and create jobs. As you know, the purpose of this fund is to provide community banks with Tier 1 capital to increase their lending to small businesses, along with incentives for doing so.…”