John Kerry: “today I offer, on behalf of myself and Senators Snowe, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Levin, an amendment to H.J. Res. 2, the…”

“today I offer, on behalf of myself and Senators Snowe, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Levin, an amendment to H.J. Res. 2, the fiscal year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations resolution. The purpose of the amendment is to reverse severe budget cuts to the SBA's largest small business lending program, commonly referred to as the 7(a) loan program. As part of the administration's fiscal year 2003 budget request, the President under-funded the program by 56 percent, leaving small businesses short than $6 billion in critical loan dollars. In order to restore over a billion dollars of that short-fall, this amendment would transfer unused funds from SBA's STAR loan program to the 7(a) loan program. As my colleagues may recall, the STAR program was a temporary loan program that I established with Senator Bond to help small businesses across the Nation hurt by terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Thousands of small businesses nationwide were helped by the $3.6 billion in loans already made available through the STAR program, and I thank Senators Hollings and Byrd for helping me to secure the funding. The authorization for the STAR loans has expired and rather than let the remaining money lapse, we should re-allocate it to help small businesses have access to regular 7(a) loans. Just as we took care of small businesses hurt by 9/11, it is time to turn our attention to those who need financing in this down economy when banks are restricting capital to small businesses.”