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The Associated Press found that loans to help small businesses recover from the Sept. 11th attacks were given to businesses who were unaffected by the attacks. The Small Business Administration (SBA) doled out $5 billion in low-interest loans with little oversight and allowed the loans be distributed among many industries, as reported. Indeed, small businesses that were not affected by the terrorist attacks were granted loans. Tom Mayl received two Sept. 11th loans to open a Subway shop and a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Sidney, Ohio. Other small businesses that received loans were 55 Dunkin Donuts franchises, a Virgin...

December 31, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday called on President Bush to launch an investigation into the Small Business Administration's outrageous bungling of a special loan program meant to help businesses hurt by 9/11. Clinton said she was "particularly incensed" that the SBA pushed lenders across the country to peddle 9/11 loans to a tanning salon in Las Vegas and a golf course in Texas "while many New York businesses struggled just to stay afloat." She dispatched letters yesterday to Bush and to Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) — the top two members...

"Funds appropriated for . . . small businesses adversely affected by the terrorist attacks may not have been used for that purpose," the report, released Wednesday by the Small Business Administration's inspector general, found. Along with dozens of Dunkin' Donut shops and pizza parlors across the country, beneficiaries of the SBA's Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief (STAR) program — which provided special post-9/11 loan guarantees — included: * A tanning salon — in Las Vegas — basked in a loan of more than $500,000. * A golf course in Texas scored a hole-in-one with a $640,000 advance. * Jan's Janitorial Service,...

HARRISBURG, Pa. - In the name of helping businesses hurt by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government approved nearly $111 million worth of loan guarantees and low-interest loans for a motley mix of Pennsylvania enterprises, including doughnut shops, a bowling alley, an exercise gym, a flour mill and a tree nursery. The U.S. Small Business Administration provided almost $5 billion through a mix of direct loans and federal guarantees for bank-issued loans. The SBA loans carried low-interest rates and payments deferred for two years; the guarantees assured banks that taxpayers would cover any defaults, and the government...

Nevada tanning salon gets 9/11 loan: audit Thu Dec 29, 2005 03:10 PM ET By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Texas golf course, a Nevada tanning salon and an Illinois candy shop were among small businesses that may have improperly received U.S. subsidized loans intended for firms hurt by the September 11 attacks, an internal government watchdog has found. The Small Business Administration's inspector general said in a report made public on Wednesday that in 85 percent of the sample of loans it reviewed, a company's eligibility to receive the money through the program could not be verified. A...

WASHINGTON - In a program to help businesses after Sept. 11, a high percentage of government-backed loans went to recipients who appeared to be unqualified — some of them unaware they were receiving terrorism-recovery money, investigators report. The Small Business Administration's inspector general said Wednesday that agency officials were at fault for telling lenders in the program that their determinations would not be questioned. The inspector general concluded that only nine loan recipients in the 59 cases sampled appeared to be qualified for disaster loans. Lenders who handed out billions of dollars in loans failed — 85 percent of the...