FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
JUNE 18, 2020

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Mnuchin, Tell Us Who’s Benefiting from the Paycheck Protection Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the House Ways & Means Committee convened to discuss how to deliver tax relief for working families. One key topic? The soon-expiring Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a program created by the CARES Act aimed at providing upwards of $500 billion to struggling small businesses to pay employee wages and other critical expenses. Except, what it actually did was prioritize funding the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of actual small business owners and struggling families — classic Trump policymaking at work.

Early on, the PPP was sharply criticized for loaning funds to corporations, banks were unprepared to distribute funds, and small business owners faced massive barriers to accessing the money. Now, people across the country are demanding to know: Who actually received these funds?

After the hearing today, Tax March Campaign Director Dana Bye issued the following statement:

“With hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars being distributed to businesses during a global pandemic, transparency is everything. The American people deserve to know which businesses and entities actually received PPP funds, particularly because too many small business owners haven’t been able to access funds — but somehow, big corporations like Shake Shack got millions of dollars.

The Treasury Department must publicly release the list of PPP recipients. Small business owners are struggling to keep their operations afloat and their workers employed. Lawmakers owe them the truth about who received these funds. If the Treasury Department won’t release the list of recipients, we have to ask: What is Steve Mnuchin hiding?”