Extending the Authority for Commitments for the Paycheck Protection Program

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I want to commend the Senator from Maryland, the ranking member on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, for bringing this legislation forward this evening.

I also want to commend my neighbor from New England, Senator Shaheen. Senator Cardin and Senator Shaheen, along with the chairman of the committee, Senator Rubio, and I crafted the Paycheck Protection Program that has literally been a lifeline to small businesses and their employees throughout this country.

More than 4.8 million loans have been made under this program. These are forgivable loans. As long as the small business, the employer, uses the percentage that is established now at 60 percent in order to pay for his or her employees, then the loan, at the end of the day, is forgiven.

This has made the difference between a small business shuttering its doors forever, laying off its employees permanently, and surviving this pandemic. Small businesses do not want to lay off their employees. Their employees are their family members, their friends, their neighbors. They are committed to them. They are committed to their communities.

Through no fault of their own, the pandemic has led to government- issued orders that have closed businesses down or their customer base has simply dried up. As a result, these small businesses were facing extreme cashflow problems, with no liquidity, and were unable to keep their businesses going without the assistance from the PPP.

I am proud of what we have been able to do. I know the difference that it has made in the State of Maine, where more than 26,000 small businesses--that is almost 75 percent of small businesses in our State--have received more than $2.2 billion worth of forgivable loans. That is equal to nearly half of the entire State budget for the State of Maine.

Those forgivable loans have sustained paychecks for nearly 200,000 employees in my State. It has allowed small businesses to retain employees; it has allowed them to recall employees; and it has allowed them to send paychecks to employees who have been furloughed due to a lack of work.

Most of all, it has kept that bond between the small business employer and his or her employees intact so that, as restrictions are lifted and as the economy reopens, the small business and its workforce can be quickly reunited. That benefits every community in this country.

So I am very pleased that the legislation that we brought to the Senate floor under the leadership of Senator Cardin tonight has been approved so that we don't see an interruption in this program.

I, too, understand the concerns raised by Senator Scott. In our negotiations on a phase 2 program of the PPP, we are looking at having a revenue test, and I think that is likely to be a provision included in the next stage of this program.

But in the meantime, let us make sure that we continue our efforts to keep our small businesses alive and paychecks flowing to their employees.

I look forward to continuing the negotiations with my colleagues. I want to thank Senator Cardin, Senator Shaheen, and Senator Rubio for their extraordinary leadership, and it has been a great pleasure to work with them on such a concrete program that has made literally the difference between going out of business and surviving this terrible pandemic.

Let me end, as Senator Shaheen did, with a story of a small business in the tourism industry in my State. This is an innkeeper who has run an inn that has been in her husband's family for generations.

In the month of June, usually--and last year--her occupancy rate is 94 percent. This June, it was 6 percent--6 percent. When I saw her, she told me that but for the Paycheck Protection Program, her business would not be in operation. She was able to keep all of her year-round staff employed because of the PPP. I think it is obvious that this business, like so many others, is going to need additional help to survive this pandemic. And that is what we must do.

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