Posted on 12/31/2005 6:53:08 AM PST by COUNTrecount
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 of the Senate Small Business Committee — urging immediate action.
Clinton is pouncing on the damning results of an internal investigation by the SBA's inspector general. The probe came after The Post's stories exposing how dozens of Dunkin' Donut shops around the country got loans totaling more than $20 million under the program.
The Post reports this week have also highlighted how a candy store in Illinois and janitorial service in Colorado secured big loans, while New York City businesses — like Steamers Landing, just blocks from Ground Zero — were turned down by the SBA.
The investigators found that as many as 85 percent of the businesses that got the special STAR loans failed to prove they were harmed by the attacks — and many actually experienced soaring sales immediately after the attacks.
Clinton wrote to Bush that "it is troubling to know that many other businesses with questionable qualifications in parts of the country far removed from New York" received loans, while those near Ground Zero "may have been dissuaded from even applying."
She told her Senate colleagues that oversight hearings are needed to understand "how the program not only failed to adequately oversee ...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
just cause Hill is making brownie points for herself...
otherwise she really doesn't care.
This seems to be the accepted standard now for our benevolent government: Got a disaster? Throw money at it. If you throw enough $Billions, you don't even have to worry about the level of corruption. To hell with any kind of oversight. Don't worry about it. The allegations will come and go. The publik is numb to it.
rofl ... thanks, there goes my coffee ;)
It was most likely banks in NEW YORK that perpetrated this fraud.
Notice they keep saying that the 'lenders' didn't properly process the loans.
LENDERS = BANKERS
Opening Statement Senator Hillary Clinton; EPW Hearing; September 24, 2002
Private non-profit entities must be able to get help quickly. In New York and communities across the country, private non-profit entities provide extremely important services that aren’t defined as “critical” under the Stafford Act as amended in 2000. We need to ensure that there is administrative flexibility so that FEMA doesn’t have to use its valuable, though limited, resources finding creative solutions for critical non-profits.
Oh, Hillie....
Hill wouldn't recognize the truth if it bit her in the behind. It'll be interesting to see if she trots out the 'We're going to take things away from you for the common good' line when she runs in '08. I think she'll dangle a carrot in front of the voters. The old bait and switch. If she tries this during the primaries, will her opponents be brave enough to call her on it? The MSM won't help.
Fox this am, and a panel of talking heads discussing the past year...how did Bush do? Up or down. To a man, the dems trotted out bogus negatives. Iraq War illegally fought -- No WMD's found, Not enough troops, No exit strategy, No real allies, No this, No that, (all memorized). Combat deaths, Abu Graebe prison atrocities, 'bad' economy, scandals, Trampling civil liberties! etc. When the moderator pointed out that they didn't have any new ideas to put before the voters, this was dismissed as So what. Even the dimmest bulb in the box gets sick and tired of hearing this drivel. They're going straight over the cliff.
The trouble is Hill is smart enough to let the rest of the party head left, while she pretends to sit in the middle. Somehow she'll plant herself in front of an army base for a big photo op. We'll hear, "When I was in Iraq eating with the troops," or maybe that was Afghanistan. (She'll play Joan of Arc.) Pay raises, more benefits for the troops, raise the minimum wage (isn't it time for that again?), get allies to do more heavy lifting. Real homeland security for the US. Promises, promises, lies and more lies. But the MSM will simply say hyperbole on the stump is expected.
Is this a prelude to "the Federal Government is taking over all the banks and just have one big village with Happy People?
Sure does, doesn't it? Then the Dems can do for the rest of the nation what they've done in places like NOLA.
nope just that they were mentioned in the article
Anybody remember Hillary telling the "UNION" bus drivers that they were breaking the law. Me neither!!
She and Chuckie were busy hiding under their respective beds so no-one would get a chance to ask them about it.
Real profiles in courage, ain't they? Especially the wannabe C-in-C.
BTW, isn't it Congress's job to see to it that the money they authorize is spent wisely, and not the job of the executive branch?
Thanks, found it myself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/nyregion/29dunkin.html
Thank you - Happy New Year and God's blessing upon you.
These agencies are non-partisan...why is this Bush's fault? Tell me.
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