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The House is expected to vote Thursday on a more than $480 billion business stimulus relief package to supplement earlier bills that have already run out of money. NET’s Jack Williams spoke with Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon, who will be one of more than 200 lawmakers to vote on money to help small businesses, hospitals and COVID-19 testing efforts.
NET News: Were you surprised the Paycheck Protection Program money ran out so quickly?
Congressman Don Bacon: I was surprised. That was $349 billion. 1.6 million businesses and nonprofits took advantage of those PPP loans. More loans in 14 days than the SBA had done in 14 years. But there's thousands of businesses wanting us to continue, because they didn't get a chance for these loans. That's why it was so important that we replenish the money in this Paycheck Protection Plan. It was a shame that we had to wait five days to do this. Everybody knew this had to be done last week. And unfortunately, politics is being played. And I think it just hurt small businesses.
NET News: And one of the big complaints about the earlier stimulus money was that larger businesses that didn't necessarily need it as much as smaller businesses sucked a lot of that money up. Is there a possibility that could happen again, with this new stimulus bill?
Congressman Don Bacon: If you were a small business or nonprofit and qualified, you would get the loan and it became a first come first serve. We found that our smaller lending facilities really worked hard to handwrite in the program for the applications. So our state worked hard to be equal in that distribution. And so, now we put in $310 billion into the Paycheck Protection Plan. And it will be largely, first come first serve which has to be a small business and it has to be a nonprofit. And there has to be some kind of issue from the coronavirus. You know some kind of issue, you had a loss of revenue, for them to qualify. There has to be some, some need to get the application.
NET News: Are you concerned at all about the mounting bills here? Can we afford to take on all this debt? Hundreds of billions of dollars here and there and now a new stimulus bill. How is this going to affect the nation's economy moving forward?
Congressman Don Bacon: I really don't call it a stimulus bill for starters, because this wasn't done with the small businesses fault, wasn't the bank's fault. This was a coronavirus it just didn't affect American, it affected the world and we've asked small businesses to close their doors. They have a $20 trillion annual GDP in our country, $20 trillion. And we're sitting out for about two months. But I do worry greatly about our deficit. I was on the phone this morning with lots of different folks in the district. We have to keep small businesses afloat. We want to get their doors back open. We want to have people hold their jobs when this virus cloud lifts, But there is no doubt we need to get our fiscal house in order. And our country, Republican nor Democrat has really made this a top priority. And we should.
NET News: We're hearing a lot of debate now about when to reopen the economy. Many are concerned that the longer we're shut down, the more permanent damage that we're going to see in the economy. We've seen some protests in some states. How close are we in your opinion to a tipping point where that becomes more of a concern?
Congressman Don Bacon: What's the point if you don't have an economy? You can't pay for the hospitals, you can't pay for the medical expenses. So there has to be a integrated plan. Of course, we're trying to do everything we can to save lives. But to answer your question directly, it's going to be a state by state, regional issue. In some areas where the numbers are going down, they're gonna want to open up sooner. Our state, you know, we have not done the hardest shelter in place, in your home kind of policy. Our numbers are still going up, I think, let's get around that corner, we see the numbers going down. We will not be a light switch turning on. We'll kind of be a dimmer switch, where we gradually turn on that economy and get people back to work. Oh, it's gonna be sooner rather than later. Because you have to have an economy, to pay for, pay for the household, pay for the medical care, and to pay for the things that we need. It's gotta be an integrated approach.
NET News: The last vote that you were a part of was a little bit unusual. You were on a plane and got off the plane in Omaha because things changed. This one seems a little bit more normal. Tell us about what's going to happen with this vote.
Congressman Don Bacon: We have to have at least 216 people, 218 majority but we have a few open seats. So 260 people have to be there for quorum. And and I'm in good health right now. So I'm going to part of the 216, we won't have a full house by no means. They will probably vote somewhere around 11 or 12 o'clock on the bill. I expect a fairly overwhelming vote in support. You know these parties are worried about the spending, but we have to have our small businesses be able to open their doors.
NET News: Congressman Don Bacon represents Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. Thanks for your time today.
Congressman Don Bacon: Thank you. I appreciate your interest.