Implemented as part of multiple COVID relief packages, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has been touted by federal lawmakers in both parties as an effective way to provide aid to struggling American small businesses.
However, a new report suggests that not only did the government fail to distribute loans to small businesses in need, but the program overall was ineffective in saving jobs.
According to David Autor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, the PPP only saved between 1.4 million and 3.2 million jobs.
This analysis widely contradicts claims made by the Treasury Department in December, wherein the government agency proclaimed that PPP loans saved upwards of 18.6 million jobs.
"A very large chunk of the benefit went to a very small share of the firms, and those were probably the firms least in need," Autor told The New York Times.
Furthermore, the majority of PPP loans were given to just 5% of firms, according to a December report from The Washington Post.
The article also detailed how roughly 600 companies (including many national chains and large companies) received loans of $10 million, the maximum amount allowed under the program.
"This new data verifies what we have heard directly from our small-business members — that the PPP program advantaged big businesses over small and exacerbated long-standing disparities in access to credit and capital for underbanked communities," Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of the advocacy group Main Street Alliance, told the Post.
Sadly, this isn't the first (or last) time bureaucratic inefficiency has led to American suffering.
It's almost become an expectation that the federal government screws up whatever issue it decides to get involved in.
Not only has government incompetence led to the forced closures of tens of thousands of small businesses, but now it also has the distinct honor of giving handouts to big businesses that don't even need assistance.
So long as the pandemic continues, Congress will continue to pass bloated spending bills that include funding for corrupt programs like PPP, all the while spending future generations into oblivion.
The only solution to these kinds of ever-increasing governmental problems is to call an Article V Convention of States.
Calling a convention will provide the American public with the mechanism necessary to not only reign in overzealous spending, but also place term limits on career federal officials and limit the size and scope of the federal government.
Our Founding Fathers foresaw that there would come a day when calling an Article V convention would be necessary to hold a federal government too big for its britches to account.
And ladies and gentlemen, that day is today.
