The Small Business Administration has told lawmakers it can reinvigorate its streamlined guarantee program by nearly tripling the maximum loan size. So far, Congress has been mum on the idea.
The more things change in small-business lending, the more they stay the same, going back as far as 3,000 years. But in this book excerpt, Karen Mills, former head of the Small Business Administration, predicts momentous changes ahead.
The agency’s Small Business Investment Company program is slumping, and Congress is pressuring its top executive, Joseph Shepard, to get it back on track or step aside.
Lawmakers and others faulted the agency's foot-dragging on approving licenses and funding requests for small-business investment companies, whose owners include banks.
A fight between Democrats and Republicans over a proposal to let the SBA’s Office of Advocacy challenge rulings made by other government agencies is threatening to hold up funding for small-business loan guarantees.
