The federal government squandered more than $200 billion in its rush to prop up small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a government watchdog report.
A sign at a motel lobby states"WE ARE CLOSED FOR BUSINESS" during the coronavirus pandemic on May 7, 2020 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.The federal government squandered more than $200 billion in potential fraud in its aggressive rush to prop up small businesses as thethreatened to shatter the U.S. economy, according to a report published Tuesday by the inspector general of the Small Business Administration.
The report focuses on two programs created at the advent of the pandemic to support small businesses, both under the SBA's purview: the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loans . A sign at a motel lobby states"WE ARE CLOSED FOR BUSINESS" during the coronavirus pandemic on May 7, 2020 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.that likely rescued the economy, experts say. But for all the jobs they helped rescue, these programs' legacies may be tarnished by unprecedented amounts of fraud -- a turn of events that experts fear may impair efforts to pass future emergency relief programs.
"A decision was made at the outset of the pandemic: speed was the key," Michael Horowitz, the chairman of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee , a federal watchdog charged with tracking how much money was defrauded from the government during the pandemic, told ABC News in an interview on March 22. "It was a bad choice. It was the wrong choice. It never should have happened.
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