Blaine Luetkemeyer

These brave men and women not only served our country in one of the highest regards, but also came home and continued to support their communities through entrepreneurship and employing fellow veterans.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for calling today's hearing.

Going forward the SBA will be conducting independent outreach and audits on lenders who have not actively communicated to borrowers on the availability of forgiveness.

When I am home, I sit and I talk to small businesses and I often hear that the PPP saved their businesses.

The SBA's Inspector General has already flagged this program for potentially $80 to $90 billion in fraudulent loan activity.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for calling this markup to discuss seven bipartisan bills.

This represents a fraud rate of approximately 20 percent. These are taxpayer dollars on the line. This is unacceptable.

I believe this bill gets us there and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Today's slate of bills accomplishes this.

Pro-growth initiatives have worked in the past and they will work again.

This legislation will improve the SBDCs in their mission to serve small businesses.

Further consolidation within the federal government's contracting space will continue to disadvantage the nation's smallest contractors.

H.R. 7670, the 'Women-Owned Small Business Program Transparency Act' will enhance and strengthen the oversight requirements of the SBA.

We must stop reckless spending in Washington and must stop it now.

Given the magnitude of this program and the degree of potential fraud, we need to give prosecutors more time to hold these pandemic fraudsters accountable, and this bill will do just that.

This legislation comes at a critical time as our small business community faces labor and skill shortages.

I support H.R. 7694, the 'Strengthening Subcontracting for Small Businesses Act of 2022.'

Each month of the deferment period represents time that law enforcement officials need to catch criminals.

Unfortunately, the SBA's Inspector General has flagged this program as one that has experienced an increased level of fraud and activity.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation and look forward to its swift consideration on the House floor.

I support each and every one of these bills and recommend a yes vote across the board.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 7622.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank Mr. Williams and Ms. Newman for their work on this great legislation.

I thank Ms. Davids and Ms. Tenney for working in a bipartisan manner to ensure this bill reached the House floor. I thank the chair for advancing this bill. I encourage all of my colleagues to support H.R. 6441, which was unanimously…

Let's have a decent, respectful discussion.