The bill
DLARA
S. 300, 119th Congress — read as touching Commercial Banks.
Sponsored by
Sen. Budd, Ted [R-NC]
ID: B001305
Follow the money
The bill
S. 300, 119th Congress — read as touching Commercial Banks.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
20 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Small Business Administration" section, p. 780-782 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 22.
March 3, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another exercise in legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. Let's dissect this farce, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The DLARA bill claims to improve accountability in the Small Business Administration's (SBA) disaster loan program. How quaint. The real purpose is to create a veneer of transparency while maintaining the status quo of bureaucratic inefficiency and cronyism.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:**
1. **Monthly Disaster Loan Reports:** Because nothing says "accountability" like more paperwork, the bill requires the SBA Administrator to submit monthly reports on disaster loan activity. I'm sure this will be a thrilling read for Congress. 2. **Budget Request Relating to Disaster Loans:** The bill amends existing law to require separate statements in the budget request for SBA disaster loans and COVID-EIDL loans. Oh, joy! More bureaucratic busywork. 3. **Limitations on Loan Forgiveness:** This provision is a token attempt to address concerns about loan forgiveness abuse. Don't be fooled; it's just a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:**
1. **Small Business Administration (SBA):** The SBA will have to deal with more paperwork and bureaucratic red tape, because that's exactly what they need. 2. **Disaster Loan Recipients:** These poor souls will have to navigate an even more Byzantine system, all while trying to recover from a disaster. 3. **Taxpayers:** As always, taxpayers will foot the bill for this legislative charade.
**Potential Impact & Implications:**
1. **Increased Bureaucratic Inefficiency:** This bill will create more administrative burdens, ensuring that the SBA's disaster loan program remains slow and ineffective. 2. **Lack of Real Reform:** The DLARA bill fails to address the root causes of the SBA's problems, such as corruption, cronyism, and incompetence. 3. **More Opportunities for Abuse:** By not addressing the underlying issues, this bill will create more opportunities for abuse and waste in the disaster loan program.
In conclusion, the DLARA bill is a masterclass in legislative obfuscation, designed to create the illusion of reform while maintaining the status quo. It's a perfect example of how Congress can take a simple problem and turn it into a complex, bureaucratic nightmare. Bravo, lawmakers!
Sen. Budd, Ted [R-NC]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No organization contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 9 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 33 nodes and 35 connections
Total contributions: $35
Showing top 16 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 2 harmed.
Section 6 limits loan forgiveness and Section 7(b) limits disaster loans when funding is low, which may affect commercial banks' ability to provide credit to small businesses, citing Section 7(b) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 636(b))
Section 8 prohibits the SBA from issuing rules that increase costs to the disaster loan program, which may limit investment opportunities for private equity and hedge funds in small businesses affected by disasters, citing Section 8 of the bill
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Sen. Budd, Ted [R-NC])received from donors associated with that industry during the 2022–present cycles. Donations are not proof of intent — they are a record of who funds the people writing the law.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"The DLARA bill directly implements the Project 2025 call for greater SBA transparency, accountability, and improved reporting to curb mismanagement and mission creep, specifically targeting the disaster loan program."
— 748 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise loan credit subsidy costs, and miscellaneous program “enhancements” to support small businesses through economic challenges or circumstances. As noted by the Congressional Research Service: Overall, the SBA’s appropriations have ranged from a high of over $761.9 billion in FY2020 to a low of $571.8 million in FY2007. Much of this volatility is due to significant variation in supplemental appropriations for disaster assistance to address economic damages caused by major hurricanes and for SBA lending program enhancements to help small businesses access capital during and immediately following recessions. For example, in FY2020, the SBA received over $760.9 billion in supplemental appropriations to assist small businesses adversely affected by the novel coronavirus (COVID- 19) pandemic.18 The CRS further notes that “[o]verall, since FY2000, appropriations for SBA’s other programs, excluding supplemental appropriations, have increased at a pace that exceeds inflation.”19 In terms of current loan volume, the SBA “reached nearly $43 billion in fund- ing to small businesses, providing more than 62,000 traditional loans through its 7(a), 504, and Microloan lending partners and over 1,200 investments through SBA licensed Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022.”20 The agency’s total budgetary resources for FY 2022 amount to $44.25 billion, which represents 0.4 percent of the FY 2022 U.S. federal budget.21 HISTORY OF MISMANAGEMENT Throughout its history, various SBA programs and practices have generated negative news headlines and scathing Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Inspector General (IG) reports that have centered on mismanagement, lack of competent personnel and/or systems, and waste, fraud and abuse.22 From the 8a program23 to Hurricane Katrina24 to the more current COVID-19 (EIDL) program and PPP lending program,25 the SBA has managed to maintain its lending role even when repeated system failures have affected its distribution of funds. Congress has been somewhat responsive, pressuring the SBA to clean up fraud-related matters within its COVID-19 lending and grant programs.26 Repub- licans in the U.S. House of Representatives have gone farther, specifying that the SBA needs to improve transparency and accountability and deal with mission creep, the expansion of unauthorized programs, and structural and reporting deficiencies that have allowed mismanagement and fraud to reoccur, largely through massive supplemental appropriations.27 The SBA is led by an Administrator (currently a member of the President’s Cabinet) and a Deputy Administrator. Senate-confirmed appointees include — 749 — Small Business Administration the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Chief Counsel for Advocacy, and Inspector General. Entrepreneurs and small businesses require limited-government policies that do not impede their risk-taking and growth. A future Administration can leverage and strengthen core SBA functions that have been fairly effective at reining in and calling attention to costly regulations and policies that are harmful to small businesses. This core advocacy function is aided both by statutory authority and by a network of small-business organizations and allies that support limited-gov- ernment policies.28 Moreover, an effective SBA Administrator and leadership team can work and advocate across the federal government to ensure that extreme regulatory poli- cies—or anticompetitive rules and actions that may favor big businesses over small businesses or international competitors over American small businesses—are dismantled or do not progress when proposed. MISSION CREEP AND ENLARGEMENT As noted, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have evidenced con- cern about SBA mission creep and the need to make a sprawling, unaccountable agency more focused and operationally sound. Moreover, there is unease that the agency has moved from being open to any eligible small business searching for sup- port to being hyperfocused on “disproportionately impacted,” politically favored, or geographically situated small businesses and entrepreneurs. Today, initiatives aimed at “inclusivity” are in fact creating exclusivity and stringent selectivity in deciding what types of small businesses and entities can use SBA programs. For example, even though the SBA under President Donald Trump proposed a rule to remove all of the unconstitutional religious exclusions from its regulations29 to conform with Supreme Court decisions that have made their unconstitutionality clear, the SBA has not acted on the proposed rule and still uses religious exclusions in determining eligibility for business loans. Several other specific concerns include but are not limited to: l The SBA’s request to become a “designated voter agency” in response to President Biden’s executive order on “Promoting Access to Voting.”30 l The creation of duplicative channels and “pilot programs” for the delivery of business training rather than working through existing counseling partners. The programs are largely duplicative of private, state and local government, and educational system offerings.31 l A push to expand direct government lending.32
AI Analysis:
"The bill directly enhances accountability, transparency, and fiscal oversight of the SBA's disaster loan program, which aligns with Project 2025's focus on reforming the disaster loan program and addressing forgiveness/fraud issues in SBA lending."
— 753 — Small Business Administration COVID-19 Lending Program Accountability and Cleanup. A major immediate priority for the next Administration should be a final accounting and accelerated cleanup of fraudulent COVID-19 loan and grant activity. As noted by the SBA IG, “managing COVID-19 stimulus lending is the greatest overall challenge facing SBA, and it may likely continue to be for many years as the agency grapples with fraud in the programs….”40 The next Administration should: l Consider bringing in private-sector support and expertise to close out these programs. Forgiveness and fraud must be dealt with as swiftly as possible, and law enforcement officials must pursue fraud vigorously. Entities receiving PPP loans that did not meet eligibility for forgiveness must be required to pay back the money. For example, under the CARES Act,41 PPP loan applicants generally were eligible only if, together with all their affiliates, they had no more than 500 employees. Numerous Planned Parenthood affiliates self-certified eligibility for PPP loans during the initial wave of loans that were governed by the CARES Act’s size requirement. Many Senators and Representatives asserted that these Planned Parenthood organizations were ineligible because— considered together with their affiliates—they exceeded the maximum eligible size.42 The Trump Administration SBA notified several Planned Parenthood PPP recipients of its preliminary determination of their ineligibility and of SBA’s authority to take various actions against applicants that falsely certified their eligibility.43 To date, despite continued oversight attempts by Members of Congress,44 the SBA has taken no action on the Planned Parenthood loans other than to forgive them, and in 2021, it approved new PPP loans to Planned Parenthood affiliates.45 l Cooperate with ongoing congressional oversight efforts and determine whether SBA has authority to reverse the forgiveness decisions. If it does have that authority, the SBA should reverse the forgiveness decisions for the subject loans, reiterate its preliminary determinations of ineligibility, investigate the matter more thoroughly, and take all appropriate action when its investigation concludes. Regardless of whether it reverses its forgiveness, if its investigation uncovers evidence that Planned Parenthood affiliates or any other loan recipients knowingly misrepresented their eligibility in their applications, the SBA should make appropriate referrals to the Department of Justice. — 754 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Disaster Loan Program and Direct Lending. The SBA’s disaster loan pro- gram provides low-interest loans to personal, business, and nonprofit borrowers following a federally declared disaster. The program suffers from problems of coordination with Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) disas- ter assistance. For example, disaster relief applicants have an incentive to avoid being approved for SBA disaster loans in order to increase the amount of FEMA assistance for which they are eligible. Moreover, the availability of disaster loans reduces individuals’ incentives to purchase disaster-related insurance. More than 90 percent of SBA disaster loans are loans to individuals such as homeowners, not to small businesses. In view of the challenges the SBA has experienced in its administration of this program, as well as the fraud and abuse in the EIDL COVID-19–related program and the IG’s concern that the systemic problems within this lending program undermine the SBA’s work, the next Administration should: l Work with Congress to assess the extent to which disaster loans should be offered by another agency rather than the SBA and explore private-sector channels for administering the loans. l Specify clearly that no new direct lending programs will be developed at the SBA. Eligibility of Religious Entities for SBA Loans. Current SBA regulations46 and SBA Form 197147 make certain religious entities ineligible to participate in several SBA loan programs. The Trump Administration proposed a rule that would remove the provisions on the ground that they violate the First Amendment.48 Subsequent Supreme Court decisions have made their unconstitutionality clearer.49 In an April 3, 2020, letter to Congress pursuant to 28 U.S. Code § 530D,50 the Trump Administration SBA advised that two such provisions violate the Free Exer- cise Clause of the First Amendment and that it therefore would not enforce them. On January 19, 2021, the Trump Administration SBA proposed a rule to remove all of the unconstitutional religious exclusions from its regulations.51 The SBA has not acted on the proposed rule. A similar religious exclusion once appeared in the regulation governing eligibil- ity for SBA Business Loan Programs,52 but it was removed in a June 2022 final rule that noted tension with the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.53 That final rule announced that the SBA would nonetheless continue to make religious eligibility determinations for business loan applicants to comply with putative Establishment Clause requirements,54 but Supreme Court precedent and Office of Legal Counsel memoranda refute the notion that large government-backed loan programs raise any Establishment Clause concerns.55
AI Analysis:
"The DLARA bill enhances SBA oversight, transparency, and fiscal controls—directly addressing Project 2025's concerns about waste, fraud, and mismanagement in SBA disaster loan programs while promoting accountability."
— 745 — 25 SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Karen Kerrigan MISSION STATEMENT The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) supports U.S. entrepreneurship and small business growth by strengthening free enterprise through policy advo- cacy and facilitating programs that help entrepreneurs to launch and grow their businesses and compete effectively in the global marketplace. OVERVIEW Created almost 70 years ago, the SBA was launched under the Small Business Act with a mission to “aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns.”1 According to its current mission statement: The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) helps Americans start, grow, and build resilient businesses. SBA was created in 1953 as an independent agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns; preserve free competitive enterprise; and maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation.2 The SBA’s founding mission has evolved over time as programs have been expanded or implemented, subject to the philosophical grounding of each Admin- istration as well as assorted economic challenges and the occurrence of natural disasters. Because of its distinct role in the federal government, the SBA became — 746 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise the default agency for providing disaster loans to small businesses, homeowners, renters, and organizations. As a result, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled through the agency to businesses and individuals over the years. Some SBA programs are effective; others are not. The largest program in SBA’s history, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), has been credited with saving millions of jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.3 A conservative Administration would rightly focus on saving small businesses during such a crisis. At the same time, however, various SBA programs have generated waste, fraud, and misman- agement of taxpayer dollars. For example, and more recently, more than $1 trillion in COVID-19 relief was distributed through the SBA.4 The SBA’s EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan) Advance program in particular shows the dangers that can come with direct government lending. EIDL Advance provided direct cash grants and loans to small businesses. The SBA Office of Inspector General “identified $78.1 billion in potentially fraudulent EIDL loans and grants paid to ineligible entities,”5 which represented more than half of all funds spent through the program. Although PPP worked through private lenders and as a result experienced relatively less fraud than EIDL experienced, it is estimated “that at least 70,000 [PPP] loans were potentially fraudulent.”6 ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND CORE FUNCTIONS In 1954, the agency began to execute such core functions as “making and guaranteeing loans for small businesses,” “ensuring that small businesses earn a ‘fair proportion’ of government contracts and sales of surplus property,” and “provid[ing] business owners with management and business training.”7 In 1970, President Richard Nixon’s Executive Order 11518 enhanced the agen- cy’s advocacy role by providing for the “increased representation of the interests of small business concerns before departments and agencies of the United States Government.”8 This advocacy role was strengthened with the adoption of the Small Business Amendments of 1974,9 which established the Chief Counsel for Advocacy, and was then reinforced and expanded in 1976 with the creation of the Office of Advocacy, providing additional resources to ensure that small businesses had a voice in the regulatory process. In 1980, the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)10 further strengthened the Office of Advocacy’s role, providing accountability across federal agencies to ensure that they considered the impact of their rulemakings on small businesses. The RFA requires federal agencies “to consider the effects of their regulations on small businesses and other small entities,”11 and the Office of Advocacy is charged with ensuring that federal agencies abide by the law and is required to provide an annual report to the President and the Senate and House Committees on Small Business.12 In addition, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA) of 201613
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.