Olympia Snowe: “I rise today to urge my colleagues to support a one-year extension of the Small Business Administration, SBA, 504 loan…”

“I rise today to urge my colleagues to support a one-year extension of the Small Business Administration, SBA, 504 loan refinancing program that was originally authorized in the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. This bill would allow small business owners to use 504 loans to refinance up to 90 percent of existing commercial mortgages. The 504 loan program provides approved small businesses with long- term, fixed-rate financing used to acquire fixed assets for expansion or modernization. According to the SBA, as of February 15, 2012, the $50 billion in 504 loans has created over 2 million jobs. The refinancing option in the Small Business Jobs Act authorized $7.5 billion in refinancing until September 27, 2012. Unfortunately, because of a delay in promulgating regulations to enable refinancing, the program did not become operational until a few months ago, significantly shortening the period of time that business could refinance existing 504 loans. The 504 loan program also comes at no cost to taxpayers, has created jobs and will provide much needed relief to businesses for one additional year. America's small business owners face a daunting business life cycle that is volatile at best: according to the SBA, while seven out of 10 new employer firms survive for at least 2 years, only \1/3\ of these firms exist after 10 years. These failure rates are quite constant for different industries. Yet one factor that is a bell-weather for success is access to capital.…”