In a late Friday night missive to congressional leaders, President Joe Biden wrote that the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program is expected to run out of funding before Congress reconvenes after the November elections.
The SBA needs $1.6 billion to keep up with thousands of new applications coming in each day for aid after Hurricane Helene tore through the Southeast late last week, an administration official said late Friday.
Even before the hurricane hit, the White House anticipated the need and called on Congress to add additional funding to the stopgap appropriations law running through Dec. 20. Republican leaders sought to keep the extension as “clean” as possible and declined to include the extra SBA funding, though they agreed to a provision freeing up nearly $20.3 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund.
The SBA situation is different from that of FEMA, which currently has enough money to get through the end of this year, Biden wrote in his letter to Hill leaders.
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