June 4, 2020
House Adds Flexibility to Paycheck Protection Program
This past week, the House of Representatives came back to D.C. to vote via proxy voting. As you may recall, proxy voting is a change in the House’s rules that allows a member to vote for up to 10 other colleagues on any Coronavirus related legislation to ensure members are able to work from home.
While most of the headlines were taken up by debate surrounding the Constitutionality of Proxy Voting, the House voted on H.R. 7010 or The Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020. The legislation’s goal is to make the Program’s loans more easily accessible by loosening its terms of use. Among its provisions, H.R. 7010 provides small businesses more time to use the emergency loan from 8 weeks to 24 weeks, allows borrowers to defer payroll taxes for those that received loan forgiveness over the 24 weeks, and changes the 75/25 rule mandating that at least 75% of the loan must be used for payroll rather than other costs to a 60/40 ratio.
The legislation passed almost unanimously, 417-1, with Kentucky’s Thomas Massie (R) voting nay. Upon passage, Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) said of his bill:
“For the past two months, I’ve heard from business owners in Central Texas who want to keep their employees on the payroll, continue serving their communities, and — mostly — stay afloat until they are allowed to be fully back open for business. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has helped many of them do just that, but I have heard from far too many business owners that the program, as it stood, needed changes to make it work for them. I didn’t want to see another local institution go out of business because Congress is more focused on politics than helping Americans who need it. Fortunately, our bipartisan bill puts Americans first and will ensure our favorite small business are around on the other side. I am thankful to my colleagues for their overwhelming support today, and I look forward to its swift passage in the Senate.”
The Paycheck Protection Program has certainly been in need of a few fixes since its inception. It ran out of funds within two weeks of its creation and Planned Parenthood affiliates received $80 million of its funds. We can only hope that this new legislation further ensures taxpayer funds are being used wisely. Eagle Forum in D.C. will continue to monitor legislation related to COVID-19 and keep you apprised of any updates. For further information on Congressman Chip Roy and The Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020, please listen or watch our podcast episode entitled “Congressman Chip Roy: Inside D.C.