Ben Cardin

I think the participation efforts ought to be longer than a year because you want the continuous work for minority businesses.

I appreciate your focus on these important issues. Thank you for all of your work on behalf of the citizens of Maryland.

I would like to see a picture, a copy of that picture. I will go over later.

This is good economic policy for both the private sector and the public sector, Mr. Senator.

As I said in the introduction to Mr. Manger's question, our Committee wants to work with the SBA to accomplish the mission in helping underserved communities.

I want to thank all of the panelists. This has been, I think, extremely helpful.

I know of a lot of businesses that are minority-owned, women-owned businesses that do not fall in rural and do not fall in a HUBZone that should qualify for the maximum amount of help that we could give them to get loans.

I just hope we can evaluate that because we do think there are a lot--I mean, I know a lot of parts of Maryland that have had designations, are losing their designations.

My concern is that imposing a moratorium freezes the CA lenders that we currently have.

But my information also shows that we do have regional gaps in having the availability of these programs.

Mr. Lewis, you mentioned the gaps that we have in regards to minority communities.

I do not know if that is accurate. The fee waiver seems to have been very effective in helping underserved businesses.

Congress is very much interested in the fee waiver program.

Let us make sure that we are improving those results, not moving in the wrong direction.

I share that concern.

And these are areas I hope that the SBA will take into consideration as we are continuing.

We did take a suggestion actually that John Lewis made, and it was actually incorporated before we even heard from John today

Administrator McMahon is well respected in our Committee. She has been very vocal about her commitment to make sure that the programs are diverse and fairly representative of this country.

Thank you, Dr. Wilson. I appreciate it very, very much.

Quite an impressive record. Well done.

I would just hope that there will be an opportunity for this type of input as we look toward the ultimate resolution of the permanency of this program.

This is an incredibly important topic.

We can and must do better.

Lack of access to credit for minorities is not a new problem, and the trends show that this situation is not improving as quickly as it needs to do.

That is unacceptable.