On the recordSeptember 29, 2020
Mr. President, first of all, let me thank my colleague from North Dakota for making this presentation to begin with and my colleague from North Carolina for supporting him in this action. We appreciate the comments the Senator from Maryland has made, but we, most certainly, disagree with the approach he is suggesting. Senator Cramer has suggested that we have a very serious problem here that has to be addressed. This is something that does not affect just Republican businesses. It affects all businesses. You are talking about 4.2 million small businesses across the United States that are being impacted by this that have borrowed money in good faith and that have kept their businesses open. Now, surprisingly, when it comes time for the forgiveness portion of this to occur, we have a very challenging process put in place--a burdensome process--that could only have been done with the common sense found in Washington, DC, not in the rest of the country. To make the application more difficult for one to get forgiveness than the actual application to participate in the program in the first place is simply absurd. Let me share with you a message from one of our bank executives in South Dakota. He is a rather prominent CEO in South Dakota. I share with you that I have cleaned this up a little bit and will paraphrase his quote to us after we asked him for information concerning how the banks will try to handle this.…





