Comment by BoiledCabbage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoiledCabbage | Hacker News Reader

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> Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies that absolutely did not need it, and that's not even counting the massive volume of fraudulent claims. The COVID Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to shore up companies that would otherwise have to fire employees, but AFAICT nothing really stopped highly profitable companies from also collecting the money.

And this was by design. The administration at the the time explicilty pushed for there to be no oversight at all on this. The opposition party at the time said it's just setting things up for fraud and corruption, but it was desired to have no oversight. Not even after the funds had been released (if you wanted to make an argument that upfront oversight would have slowed down the distribution).

The administration both fired the inspectors general that would oversee the program, and passed laws to prevent transparency into the program. It was fairly controversial at the time, but now mostly lost in the haze of 2020 lockdowns.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/15/inspector...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/16/taxpayers-...

IMHO they should have done a compromise where the terms of eligibility were closer to 2nd draw in that you needed to have an actual emergency, huge sick leave, late bills, etc. Or at least high likely hood.

Still give it out right away. Just put a checkbox on the form. And then follow up with the details on forgiveness later.

If a company jumps the gun, they think things look black, but in a month it turns around and they are fine allow them to return it or keep it at a low (but not crazy low) interest rate.

For foreignness prove the loss/necessity.

So can go after egregious abusers. Because it wasn't abuse if you took it and didn't need it. So long as used for payroll, rent, etc. Because why wouldn't you take free money. We did.

I have multiple friends who received second draw PPP loans for their businesses in summer 2021 under the current administration. They received a significant percentage of their 2019 revenue in a full distribution to spend on payroll and some other expenses despite the fact that their monthly revenue at the time of distribution had rebounded. They were able to bank current revenues because current costs were covered by the loan, which will ultimately be forgiven. It didn't make any sense. I don't blame them for taking advantage of it though.

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