LANHAM, Md. — Seeking to create more jobs, President Barack Obama on Friday asked Congress to temporarily expand two lending programs for the owners of small businesses.
But a Democratic House leader slammed the president’s proposals, saying they’re the wrong approach to creating jobs.
Obama’s lending plans are part of a broader attempt by the administration to assist small businesses, including a $30 billion infusion to community banks to restart lending. That program faces some skepticism from community banks.
Obama said Friday that he wants to bolster the impact of small businesses, the chief creators of new jobs in a struggling economy.
Just hours before he spoke, the nation’s jobless rate finally dipped below 10 percent — to a stubbornly high 9.7 percent — in the latest government figures.
Obama said he wants businesses to be able to refinance their commercial real-estate loans under the Small Business Administration and he wants that government agency to increase loans used for lines of credit and capital.
Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., chair of the House Small Business Committee, said the SBA Express program has been criticized for underwriting loans that banks already would have made without government backing and for carrying the highest default rate of any SBA program.
“With loan defaults on the rise, we should not base our strategy on increasing the size of the least stable SBA lending program,” Velazquez said.
