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Stories and information in our region on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Blumenthal Pushes For Additional $500B In Small Business Aid For Coronavirus

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut)
J. Scott Applewhite
/
AP
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, heads to the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in 2016.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told small businesses in Fairfield County that Congress will appropriate more money for the Paycheck Protection Program that ran out of money on Thursday.

The $349 billion Congress allocated for the PPP loan program, administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration, ran out 14 days after small businesses were first able to apply for the loans. Blumenthal says that’s why he and his congressional colleagues are negotiating more money for the program.

“The proposal is for $250 billion. I think it should be $500 billion. Because we are seeing such a deluge in applications. We are clearly going to need more money for this program so why not do it now. $500 billion so people have a greater sense of security.”

Local chambers of commerce told Blumenthal that an area bank had received 90,000 PPP applications in the past 10 days. And the bank had only been able to process 8,000 of them.

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As WSHU Public Radio’s award-winning senior political reporter, Ebong Udoma draws on his extensive tenure to delve deep into state politics during a major election year.
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