By TOM LATEK, Kentucky Today
During a U.S. Senate Small Business Committee hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, the committee’s ranking Republican continued his efforts to stop taxpayer dollars from funding abortions.
During the hearing, Paul questioned Small Businesses Administrator Isabel Guzman over the SBA’s continued funding of abortions using taxpayer dollars through Paycheck Protection Program loans.
“I questioned SBA Administrator Guzman on the Biden administration’s decision to allow small business loans to go to Planned Parenthoods and fund abortions across America, which is a reversal of the Trump administration’s determination that these loans were illegal,” he said. “I have repeatedly asked for more information that she has not yet provided. Today she again refused to give us that information, even though she clearly knows the answers.”
On April 15, Paul says he and the committee’s Republican members sent a letter detailing how two Planned Parenthood affiliates were approved for second draw loans despite their ineligibility for those loans. The letter requested that the SBA investigate and provide additional information regarding Planned Parenthood affiliates participation in the PPP by April 23.
According to Paul, during Guzman’s confirmation hearing, she committed to look into the PPP loans being given to Planned Parenthood and ensure that SBA’s affiliation rules were applied and enforced in accordance with the law. Since her confirmation, however, Paul says the SBA has approved at least six additional loans to Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates for $17.6 million, including a recent approval to Planned Parenthood of Greater New York for $10 million, the maximum loan amount.
On May 19, 2020, the SBA determined that local affiliates of PPFA were ineligible for PPP loans under the applicable affiliation rules and size standards and that the loans they received should be returned. SBA cited the control PPFA exercised over its local affiliates in a number of different areas, such as medical standards, affiliate patient transfers, and an accreditation review process administered every three years as evidence of an affiliated organizational structure.
Given that PPFA has nearly 16,000 employees nationwide, SBA determined these PPFA affiliates were ineligible for PPP and requested that each of the 38 affiliates return the $80 million in PPP funds they wrongfully received.
Paul says during the partisan Budget Reconciliation process earlier this year, Democrats planned to waive SBA’s affiliation rules for nonprofits, which would have allowed PPFA to be eligible for PPP. Paul forced Democrats to remove the provision, and strenuously argued to the Senate Parliamentarian that this waiver would only benefit Planned Parenthood and thus violated the so-called Byrd rule.
Before the Parliamentarian was able to rule on the arguments presented, Paul says the Democrats filed an updated version of the bill that did not include the offending provision, a concession that avoided setting a precedent.
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Paul criticizes SBA for continued funding of abortions through PPP - Kentucky Today
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