Dallas Small Business Owner Frustrated After Congress Lets SBA Program Run Out Of Money
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A Small Business Administration program aimed at helping businesses survive the Covid-19 outbreak officially ran out of money Thursday.
Congress initially gave nearly $350 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP.
But the program is no closer to receiving an infusion of $250 billion because Republicans and Democrats can't agree on a plan.
Republicans in the Senate and House blame Democrats for the standoff.
Democrats want to spend more money for hospitals and local governments.
Ben Davis doesn't know much longer his men's grooming shops can stay afloat.
"For many of us, we're getting to the end of wondering what to do," said Davis.
He was hoping the nine loans he applied for from the PPP would keep nearly 100 of his employees on the payroll even though his 12 locations of the Gents Place were forced to close.
But he only received two of the loans and has been only able to keep paying for a handful of employees.
Now that SBA's PPP program has run out of money, Davis has grown even more frustrated.
"We got to make some tough decisions on whether we continue to do what's right for our members and our guests and pick up the phone and answer the emails and going negative and hope the government pulls through or cut the cord," he said.
He also applied for Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) from the SBA, but didn't receive any money.
The SBA said the EIDL program has exhausted its funds too.
It's been a tough six months for Davis.
In October, a tornado destroyed his shop at Preston and Royal in Dallas.
But he said the SBA helped him then. "Having gone through the disaster loan program with the tornado, that was a really pleasant experience."
Davis has a message for members of Congress: "We're losing confidence in our elected officials. These are people we elected to be in office and many of them are letting us down right now."